The Ghost of You
by sdbubbles
Summary: As a sticky July storm brews outside, the calm exterior of Serena Campbell stirs when she is faced with the inimaginable: the ghost of the past she's always tried to forget. Torn between protecting Chantelle, controlling her own fear and keeping Michael, Ric and Hanssen's worry and concern at bay, which path will she take?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: OK...I don't really understand where this came from, but it is possibly one of the darkest stories I have written. I'll warn you, it will get dark. I would appreciate feedback on this one as it is the first story I have written on this particular subject matter.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Keller Ward was running smoothly, and unless any disasters occurred while Serena was in theatre, finishing an elective, the day would end peacefully. She was looking forward to going home and having a nice quiet evening with her daughter, probably watching _Family Guy_ or something along those lines – something light and entirely and utterly mindless.

So it was with a smile that she walked back on to the ward. Another half an hour and she was free to go. All she had to do was meet a patient due for a hernia repair first thing tomorrow, and then she was done for the day.

Chantelle was waiting with the file for her. "Thank you," she said, as the two women proceeded towards the new patient.

Serena opened the file and saw the name. Her heart leapt into her mouth for just a moment, and she had to resist the urge to run. She could be mistaken. There was still the slim possibility of coincidence.

All distant hope of tat possibility was shattered when she arrived at his bedside. "So, Mr. Pickering," she gave her best professional smile. "We are due to operate at half past nine tomorrow morning, all going well. Have you been nil by mouth for twenty four hours?"

"Yes," he replied. There was no mistaking that voice. It was a voice she would never forget, and not for the lack of trying, either.

"Yes, well, let's keep it that way," she answered. "Have you any questions?" He shook his head in response, saying nothing. He recognised her. There was no way in hell he couldn't. But he said nothing to her. She felt his eyes bore into her, seeing her discomfort at being within a hundred miles of him.

She just walked away, unable to speak for a brief moment. She felt the bile burn her throat, the urge to throw up unbearable. She had to give in. She handed Chantelle the file and stalked to the bathrooms, maintaining her professional exterior.

It was a façade that rapidly crumbled as she knelt at the toilet, vomiting until there was nothing left to throw up. The doctor in her knew it was just the shock and horror of seeing his face again. The philosopher in her took it as a warning to keep her distance and refuse to do the procedure.

His burning blue eyes were stuck at the forefront of her mind, and she could almost feel them examining her as they did all those years ago. They were more wrinkled than they were eighteen years ago, but they were his. There was no getting away from the fact that he was here, on her ward, and she was expected to operate on him.

She sat there, alone in the silence as her every move echoed, leaning against the wall of the cubicle. Sweat stuck her to her back and her forehead from being sick, and she was still speechless from the shock. The only thought she could find was that of the man lying in the hospital bed, weaker and far older than the man who to this very day still haunted her sleep. But it _was_ the same man. There was no mistaking him.

She looked at her watch, and realised she'd been sitting here, lost in thought, for a good forty-five minutes. Just then, she heard the door opened, and Chantelle's cheery voice echoed through the room. "Ms. Campbell?" she called. "Are you alright?"

Serena stumbled clumsily to her feet, and had to keep her balance on the door when she opened up her cubicle. "Yes, I'm fine, Nurse Lane," she answered, her voice calmer than her thoughts. "Do you know if Mr. Griffin is still on the ward?"

"No, sorry," Chantelle said. "He went home about twenty minutes ago."

"Mr. Hanssen?" she tried desperately for a way out of this operation. Chantelle brightened up at this suggestion, and nodded with her trademark brilliant smile.

"Yep, saw him pass only five minutes ago, on his way to his office," she supplied, and a wave of relief fell over Serena. She touched the top of Chantelle's arm in a rare moment of gratitude.

"Thank you," she said before she practically ran out of the room. She walked quickly to the Director of Surgery's office, and knocked on the door, catching her breath as she waited for him to beckon her in.

"Come in!" she heard him call to her. Though, of course, he could not know it was she who was standing at the other side of his door. She painted an expression of professionalism across her features before she entered. She did not want Henrik Hanssen to know the extent of this problem.

She stood in front of his desk, feeling like an ashamed schoolgirl who could not stand up to the bully, and needed the teacher to intervene. "Ms. Campbell," he greeted her. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Fraser Pickering's hernia op, just came in tonight," she began, not knowing how to continue. She couldn't exactly tell him how she felt inside about the prospect of operating on him. The thought, however immoral, had occurred very briefly to her; the slightest slip of the scalpel could kill him, and the very thought terrified her.

"What about it?" Hanssen demanded.

"I can't be the one to do it," she asserted. "I didn't know he was coming until this afternoon, and I'd never met him before," she excused the short notice in advance. She knew he would not be impressed by the suddenness of this, but it really was not her fault. He was one of Ric's, who had been placed on her list while he attended a check-up on the state of his recently beaten cancer. She didn't blame Ric, either. He wasn't to know any better than she was.

"And why is it that you are refusing to operate on Mr. Pickering?" he asked her, his tone softening ever so slightly when he seemed to realise this was a personal matter. Regardless of his manner, Serena knew he took personal situations into account.

She struggled to find the right words to put it into. There were no words to describe the true reason she couldn't operate on him. No words she could say to her Director of Surgery, at any rate. The thoughts in her head spun round and round, making her feel slightly dizzy, and she tried to tell him the truth. "I..." she attempted, but nothing more came out.

So she settled for what was not a lie, but was not the whole truth. It was the outcome, but not the full story, and it was thankfully enough for her to be excused from the surgery.

"He is Eleanor's father," she confessed. "It would be unethical."

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please review and tell me what you're all thinking!  
Sarah x**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you very much to everyone who has read, followed or reviewed this story! It's very much appreciated. Please keep telling me how you think I'm doing!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Hanssen stared at her for a second before he let out a soft sigh. "Of course," he agreed. "It would not be wise to operate on the father of your child, whether you still feel anything for him or not. But, unfortunately, Mr. Griffin will be absent all day tomorrow, and Mr. Malick will be away for the rest of the week. Those are the only two surgeons who would be bound to do it, as they are working on Keller already," he explained to her what she already knew. "I cannot do it because I have a full theatre list already, plus too many meetings."

"Mr. Spence?" she asked him desperately. She needed to be kept as far away from this man as possible. "I don't want a bed being blocked for an extra day until Ric comes back," she told him, not adding that she couldn't bear to be in the same room as Fraser Pickering.

"That is at Mr. Spence's discretion. He has his hands rather full with AAU as it is, I'm sure you understand," he reminded her. "But if you can work something out, then, by all means, go ahead."

Serena nodded thoughtfully. She still felt sick from the shock. She couldn't go home, and let Eleanor see what had happened to her mother. She would demand answers, and they were answers Serena did not want to give. She _couldn't_ talk about him truthfully. "Thank you for your advice, Mr. Hanssen," she said gratefully, before leaving him without another word.

She refused to go home without the security of knowing she would not be forced to resist the temptation of killing the man who changed her very being. The thought of having to operate on him...she shuddered slightly as she stalked the corridors with her head held high. She had learned a long time ago that she could not speak about it, but she would not cower, either.

She entered AAU quietly and asked Eddi, "Is Mr. Spence around?" Eddi pointed to the consultant's office, so Serena followed the direction and found him sitting at his computer. "Michael," she greeted him.

"Well, well, Ms. Campbell," he answered her cockily. "What can I do you for?" he grinned, and she had to smile back, so he could not see how bad she felt for what she was about to ask of him.

"I need a favour," she began, sitting opposite him. "I have a patient, and I am...ethically forbidden from operating on him," she revealed, after searching for the right words.

"Oh," he said, his interest picking up. "Who is he? Brother? Father? Boyfriend?" he raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"Nothing to do with you," she retorted. How could she tell the womaniser of Holby City Hospital why she would not carry out her duty of care on a particular patient?

"Oh, come on," he drawled. "Fair's fair. I wanna know who I'm operating on," he challenged her, and she realised he was telling her he would help her out.

Reluctantly, she met his gaze. She could not speak. She could only object silently, with her stony features and her cold eyes. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What are you running from?" he demanded in a low tone.

"I'm not running from anything," she quickly lied, surprised that her voice came out in a defensive growl. Too defensive for her liking, and it was clearly not a lie that Michael was willing to swallow. "I just cannot do this procedure."

"Can't or won't?"

"Hanssen says I'm not to," she clarified for him. "Malick and Ric are away, and Hanssen's busy. Please, Michael. Please don't push this. Just take my word for it."

"Alright, I'll make you a deal," he proposed to her. "You cover me down here while I'm in theatre, and I'll do it," he offered.

"Done," she immediately agreed. To be honest, she would have agreed to anything to be freed of it. Of course, she wasn't truly free. She would never really be free again.

"OK. Now, you better go home," he suggested. "You look like hell," he smirked at her. She glared at him briefly, but was somewhat glad he was trying to crack a joke for her. She nodded and headed for the door.

She turned to face him again. "Thank you, Michael," she said sincerely. "You don't know how much trouble you've just saved me from," she added, trusting that, although Michael had one of the biggest mouths at Holby, he would keep the situation quiet. "I'll be down here for nine tomorrow."

"Sure," he agreed. "Goodnight, Serena," he added, and she felt him searching her for a reason for her sensitivity. She hoped to God he could not see how the appearance of the man had affected her.

She went to collect her belongings, and got down to her car, where she could think in peace. Except she didn't really want to think. She wanted an escape. So she texted Eleanor, giving the excuse of covering for Ric, and told her to take money from the jar in the cupboard and buy herself a pizza for her dinner.

She drove to the nearest off-license, and bought a bottle of the strongest bottle of alcohol she could find, which turned out to be whisky from the Highlands of Scotland. She returned to the car park, just so she could not drink and drive without being caught on her way out. Whatever she was feeling, she didn't particularly want to drunkenly wrap her car around a tree.

She opened the bottle, and took a sniff. She'd never drank straight whisky before, and now she realised why. It smelled _awful_. But still she took a mouthful. She coughed and spluttered as the amber liquid burned her throat. It _tasted_ awful. But it was strong stuff, and she could feel herself drifting after the second mouthful.

She couldn't stand the taste anymore, though, and this was enough to send her drowsy enough to eventually sleep in her car. She was not a big drinker, which was probably why she hadn't needed more than two good-sized mouthfuls of straight, very strong, whisky to make her drift.

She began to fall asleep, but the thoughts did not leave her alone. The fears. The trapped feeling she endured every time she thought of him. She had let him into her mind less and less over the years, but certain things would occasionally remind her of him.

She was haunted again when she finally fell asleep by memories of her back against a wall, strong hands restraining her, bruising into her arms. Being thrown to the floor and dragged back up again, over and over. A hand colliding roughly with her face. The sound of ripping cloth, of brute strength.

She was suddenly twenty-six years old again, terrified and bleeding and bruised. She'd trusted him, her best friend's step-brother. And she couldn't tell a soul what happened. After all, how could they believe her next to Fraser, who was a master liar? A manipulator. An attacker.

She did not wake. She didn't want to face the reality of the waking world just yet. She would rather remember than accept he was here again, and she had to work on the ward where he lay, ill and apparently innocent.

Serena was not weak, but she was not indestructible, either, and Fraser knew this very well. In fact, he used it against her once. He was not using it to hurt her again. She would not allow it. For the sake of her daughter, she would not allow it. Eleanor's face weaved in and out of her dreams, and she was in the corner of the room the next time Serena relived that night eighteen years ago. Telling her to run. Telling her to do the impossible.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
****Please drop me a review and tell me how I'm doing here!  
****Sarah x**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey again! This is chapter 3 - the lightning thing comes from how my mum said something about a storm and the breaker blew up, and the bit at the end is how I know that feeling to affect people.**

**And thanks to everyone who has read/followed/reviewed this!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

"Ms. Campbell?" Serena heard a rough voice wake her from her alcohol-induced slumber. She opened her eyes and let the sunlight come flooding in; she was leaning out the open window of her car, and there was a distinct smell of whisky in the air. She looked down and found the bottle smashed just outside the car. At what point did she open the window? She assumed she'd become too hot in her stuffy car, with the sticky summer thunder and lightning ready to crack the skies, and had opened the window for air.

She looked up at the man who woke her. "Nurse Maconie?" she asked, recognising him vaguely. She sat up a bit to look him in the face. She looked down at her watch. Half-past eight. She was due in AAU in half and hour.

"Had a wee drink, have we?" Jonny asked her, nodding down to the smashed up whisky bottle.

"Mmm," she groaned a non-committal tone. "I only managed a few mouthfuls of that last night. You Scots must have tongues of iron," she admitted, and she heard a laugh. At least someone was smiling, because she definitely wasn't.

She opened the door and went to the boot of the car, retrieving the spare clothes she and every other doctor and nurse probably kept for unexpected shifts. "I'm due on AAU at nine, so you'll have to excuse me," she gave him what she regretted to be a weak smile.

"I don't mean to be rude, Ms. Campbell," Jonny smiled at her. "But you might want to do something about the make up situation," he told her, gesturing for her to look in her wing mirror. He was right, of course. She realised she must have been crying in her sleep, not that she cared to explain this to a man she only spoke to on the passing.

"Thanks for the warning," she sighed, walking away from him.

"Ms. Campbell!" he called after her. She closed her eyes and took a breath before she turned, knowing exactly what the question would be, and what her reply had to sound like. So she spun on her heel to face him, a good few yards between them.

"Are you alright?" he checked on her. "It's just, well, nobody drinks alcohol they don't even like and then sleeps in their car if they had somewhere better to go."

"I assure you, Nurse Maconie, I am fine," she answered with a slightly too sweet smile. Anything for people to stop prodding her for answers. She knew she had sort of weakened in the past fifteen hours, but she did not need the Spanish Inquisition wherever she turned.

She walked away, stopping at a bathroom to change and remove her make up. She didn't replace it. Actually, she didn't feel comfortable with make up on her face as long as Fraser Pickering could see her. She glanced at her bare face. It was drained white, and her eyes were noticeably bloodshot from the drinking, but probably more from the crying she was unaware of doing through the night.

She steeled herself for Michael, who she knew was already curious. Well, "suspicious" was probably a more accurate term to account for the American's interest in her behaviour. And she was not proved wrong – the second Michael saw her on AAU, he tilted his head a little, trying to work out what was different about her.

But, to her incredible relief, he did stick to his word, and he went up to Keller to do the procedure she couldn't. She felt guilty for not doing it herself, as it was a task Ric had been forced to hand to her, but she knew she would feel even more guilty if she messed it up because of the mess he made of her.

The freedom didn't last long, though. Michael returned not long after, saying that something went wrong and they had to postpone. There was a mix-up in the lab, apparently, that meant that Fraser could not go into theatre. He needed some drugs to regulate his blood first, which took time to take effect. It was with great reluctance that she re-entered Keller and put her bravest face on.

She went straight to her office, and sat down with her head on the desk. An extra day, possibly longer, copped up on the ward with him. Just a perfect example of her idea of a good time. The realisation hit her and she swallowed back tears. How was she going to cope with this? Even to this day, he was the only person who ever managed to scare her. Time had done nothing to dull the way he affected her.

As she had predicted earlier, she heard thunder crash outside. Dry lightning cracked the sky, and then the rain began to sheet down. She forced herself back onto the main bulk of Keller, to find Chantelle administering the correct drugs to Fraser, and to him glancing across at her. So he _did _recognise her.

There was no remorse in his eyes. No sign that he regretted what he did. He was indifferent to how he had hurt her, how he had temporarily shattered her, forcing her to rebuild from scratch.

Before she knew it, Chantelle was next to Serena, informing her of the treatment she administered. "I hope the power doesn't go down. Alan in Maintenance says the generators have gone kind of hinky," she added, with a brightness that contradicted her words.

"That would be just my luck today," Serena replied dourly. Just as she said it, her grumbling seemed to jinx her luck for real this time. The lights went down, and all equipment stopped beeping, and all the computers died. "Told you," she moaned, switching the flash on her phone on to look around. "Nobody is to worry," she called out to the patients. "Lightning must have hit the power lines, and our generators are in need of repair. I expect every ward in the hospital is in darkness like us, but there'll be power coming back soon," she promised.

As she said it, she felt herself begin to panic. She was confined in the ward, plunged into darkness by the summer storm that had only just begun. "Oh, I am having a great day today," she muttered sarcastically to Chantelle. "See if you can find someone who knows hows to fix our back-up power, would you," she asked. She felt the lump in her throat of the terror she would never show.

She left the torch on her phone on the desk at the back of the ward to give some light, and Chantelle did the same with hers on the other end. When she came back, Serena gave Chantelle a mini-torch she had retrieved from her handbag. She realised too late that her hands were shaking, and Chantelle noticed. "Are you feeling alright, Ms. Campbell?" she asked.

"I just don't do terribly well with the dark," she confessed, and she felt her eyes dart to Fraser's bed, checking her had not moved. She felt Chantelle's comforting hand on her arm before she darted off to see if there was any way to get power back before the main line was fixed.

A fear of darkness was one of the only things that remained of er experience. She had long since learned to control the temptation to flinch away from someone's, particularly a man's, touch. She had beaten claustrophobia a long time ago, and she had learned to smile and laugh again. But she still hated the dark; it made her feel vulnerable and open to attack, even in her own home. Of course, it probably didn't help that her very own nightmare was sitting in a bed, on her ward, under her care.

She went over to tend to a woman in the bed next to Fraser's, who was panicking slightly in the darkness. She calmed her down, and stood up straight after bending over to hush her down. As she walked away, a hand caught her arm. A hand with brutality she remembered still in it.

She didn't look at him. She tugged herself free of his grip, and approached the charge nurse. "If anything happens, I've got my pager," Serena told her, and then rushed into her office.

She closed the door, and she felt her chest tightening with anxiety. The fear of the darkness she was suddenly plunged into, combined with his touch, was too much. She fell to the floor, leaning back against the desk, gasping for air. How could she let herself get like this? She thought she had some control over this, but she didn't. This was why she was terrified of showing her weaknesses, because they had been used against her, and damaged her more than she thought was possible as a naïve twenty-six year old junior doctor, with a life ahead of her.

She put her head back against the wood of the desk, struggling for breath, her hands trembling. This was the first time this had happened in years, since Eleanor was a little girl. Eleanor. She was the reason Serena learned to control her anxieties and panic. So she wouldn't need to see her mother at her weakest.

Suddenly, the door opened, and a man with a small torch entered. "Serena?" he said questioningly. It was Ric. He must have come back to see how Keller was holding up, since his check-up in another area of this hospital was most likely cancelled now. "Serena, what's happening to you?"

He touched her wrist, just where Fraser had grabbed her, and she yanked it out of his reach. "Serena!" he said, loud and demanding, wanting to help her. He was not her biggest fan, she knew, but he was a kind man. He would not see anyone suffer like this on their own.

"Panic attack," she finally gasped out, with a great deal of difficulty. She eventually let him take her hand and try and calm her down. She tried to breathe evenly, and she could feel more air getting into her lungs now. When she was breathing normally again, she felt weak and tired, and involuntarily fell into Ric's arms.

"What the hell brought that on?" he demanded of her.

"I don't deal with darkness very well," she admitted. "Especially with-" she cut herself short. She had almost let slip her darkest, deepest secret. The one that could possibly explain some of her best qualities and her worst flaws.

"Especially with what?" he asked, his arm tight around her shoulders.

"Doesn't matter," she evaded him, shaking her head a little. "It doesn't matter. Just promise me something, Ric, please?"

"What, Serena?" he replied.

"Please don't ever leave me alone in the dark."

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please drop me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I hope everyone is still liking this story. Well, not liking what's happening, but you get what I mean!**

**Thanks to everyone who has read, followed and reviewed!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Ric very gently brought Serena to her feet, and she was cautious to keep her balance. She felt dizzy, and trapped. He felt her forehead, and the cold sweat she knew was there. "Why don't you go and take a shower?" he suggested.

"No power means no hot water," she reminded him. The truth was that she didn't like the idea of stripping down for the shower right now. Realistically, she knew she would not be harmed, but that did not banish the fear of what was lurking in the dark; he had already attacked once, so what was stopping him from doing it again?

"Hot water runs off the central heating, which runs off of oil," he corrected her. "We still have hot water."

She shook her head, and Chantelle came in, apparently oblivious to Serena's terror. "Right," she said happily. "Alan says he should have the generator working in about two hours, maybe even less, so at least we'll have half-light and essential equipment," she informed them. Then she noticed Serena in the light of Ric's torch. "Oh, what happened?" she asked sympathetically.

"It doesn't matter, Chantelle," she deflected yet again. "Actually, would you happen to have any body spray or deodorant I could use? Air conditioning must have packed in with the electricity," she gave her feeble excuse. It was a big deal for her to resort to body spray, but she needed something to get rid of the feeling of the cold sweats after a horrific nightmare.

"Sure!" Chantelle replied. "Follow me!"

Serena glanced at Ric, silently warning him that there would be consequences for him if word of her panic attacks and her fear of the dark got out. They reached the locker room, and she watched the cheery nurse open her locker and take out several tin cans of body spray. "Which one?" she asked with a smile.

"Whichever you think is nicest," she humoured her, not really knowing what any of these things actually smelled like. She didn't wear perfume or body sprays. But all the same, Chantelle gave her one and she paused a second before pressing the trigger.

"Would you like to borrow my spare top?" she offered Serena, and it took her by surprise that Chantelle was being so incredibly nice to her. Then it occurred to her – Chantelle was nice to everyone, which was the most beautiful thing about her personality. "It's one of those sweaters, you know, with pockets and everything. This one has a hedgehog with a love heart on the front."

The hedgehog did not sound very appealing, and neither did the love heart, but the prospect of a light sweater that had full sleeves and a high neck was _very_ appealing to Serena, under the circumstances. "Yes, thank you," she answered Chantelle, and she knew she must have sounded insanely grateful when she spoke.

She went to unbutton her blouse, but paranoia set in. She drew the blinds, as if anyone would actually see her. She looked at the door, unable to remove her top. "Chantelle," she began croakily, the emotion and anxiety growing in her voice. "Could you please lock that door, and stand in front of it's window?" she asked, shining the torch at the door and then at Chantelle.

Chantelle gave her a strange look, clearly wondering where this sudden caution had materialised from. But she regained her smile quickly. "Of course!" She moved to stand at the door as she locked it.

Serena closed her eyes and started unbuttoning her top. She tried not to think what was sitting on the other side of the door as she sprayed herself in Chantelle's sweet-smelling spray. It was with great haste that she pulled the sweater on and stuffed her keys and her smallest possessions into the pockets. She moved the torch to see Chantelle's face, and saw a strange concern painted there.

"I'm fine," Serena said before the question was even asked. It was becoming increasingly tedious to tell the same lie to the same people in answer to the same question. There was a tiny part of her that just wanted to tell them so they could leave her alone, and not wonder about what the hell had actually made Serena Campbell, of all people, so damn nervous.

"Is it because we're stuck in the dark for a couple of hours?" she persisted. Serena's patience was wearing thin, but she would not let the façade slip. "Because I was scared of the dark when I was little, and I actually only grew out of it when I was fourteen."

Serena smiled grimly at the younger woman. "I can't sleep unless there's a lamp on in my bedroom," she confessed, feeling childish and silly. "It drives my daughter up the wall."

Chantelle just smiled again, touching Serena's arm lightly before they stepped onto the ward. There, to her horror, she found nurses wheeling Fraser into the side room. She stopped them, but the protested that Ric told them to, to which Serena demanded they put Fraser back where they found him in her harshest tone.

She stormed away to find Ric looking over a file with a tiny torch. "Fraser Pickering stays on the main ward," she demanded.

"We need space next to the trolleys. Everyone keeps tripping over his bed in the dark," explained Ric. She did see where he was coming from, and she could see the potential hazard.

"Put Mrs. Berg in the side room; she'd be more comfortable there anyway. Then you can move Mr. Pickering to where she was," she supplied. "I want him where I can see him," she said. Oh, God. She hadn't meant to say that aloud.

"And why is that?" Ric asked curiously.

"For the safety of the staff and in particular, Chantelle, since she seems to be the most naïve person I've ever come across. He does not go unwatched, do you understand me?" she almost shouted in her fear.

"Alright, Serena," he replied shining his light on her. "Alright. Calm down." Her chest had become tight again, and they both knew that she was about to start panicking again, so he put his hands on her shoulders and helped her steady her breathing. "What is this all about, Serena? You've been on edge since yesterday, according to Chantelle. I even found you in the middle of an anxiety attack. You're terrified of the darkness to the point you ended up on the floor, struggling to breathe. And now you're telling me you want a particular patient watched at all times?"

"Really, Ric," she began, her temper rising inside of her. "Can't you just believe me when I say I'm alright?" Listening to herself, she knew it sounded so stupid to ask him to believe her after walking in on her first panic attack in many years. Of course he couldn't find out. He would only go to Hanssen, who would remove her from the ward until Fraser left. She didn't want to give in. She didn't want him to beat her.

"Because," he said gently, more caring towards her than he had ever been before. "Something isn't right. You're scared of something, and it isn't just the dark."

She met his eyes begrudgingly, wishing he would leave it alone. She'd never spoken of this, to anyone, because she couldn't. Every time she thought she was ready to tell someone, her voice failed her. "It's because..." she attempted. "He-" she tried again. "No," she finally stopped trying. "I can't talk about it. Please understand that I simply just cannot talk about it."

"You can trust me," he implored her. "I won't let whatever this is get any worse. And if you think I'll tell Hanssen, I'm well practised at lying by omission," he smiled.

"I can't," she repeated. "Michael already tried last night when I had to ask him to do Fraser Pickering's surgery," she let slip, immediately regretting it.

"Hold on," Ric halted her, raising a hand to stop her talking. "You asked Michael Spence to take over your surgery? That's not the Serena Campbell I know."

"Mr. Hanssen put a stop to me doing it," she shrugged. He raised an eyebrow at her, demanding a reason for Hanssen stepping in between her and a patient. She tried to stare him down but he was stronger than her at the moment, and her vulnerability was it's worst in years. "He's Eleanor's father," she sighed, sitting down.

"That doesn't explain why you're so scared," he reminded her softy.

"Maybe not," allowed Serena. "But it _is_ all anyone is getting to know. My personal life is just that – personal." She was on the defensive again, and they both knew it. "I'm going to have to tell Chantelle, aren't I?"

"Yes," he answered, not trying to shelter her from the truth. Serena sighed and picked up a torch and went to find Chantelle. She actually feared for the young nurse's safety. Chantelle was beautiful, trusting and so incredibly naïve. She found the blonde at the nurses' station, leaning over test results with a phone, using the lit screen to read.

"Chantelle," Serena touched her back to get her attention. "Can I have a word, please?" she asked, nodding towards the staffroom. Chantelle happily followed her and closed the door behind her.

"I realise I probably ought to have told you this last night, for which I can only apologise," Serena began. "But Fraser Pickering is Eleanor's father."

"Oh, so is that why you asked Mr. Spence to do his surgery?"

"Yes," Serena confirmed. She looked at the young woman, realising that she was the double of the woman she was eighteen years ago. Long hair, talkative, lots of make up, low cut scrubs...it made Serena seriously fear for her, since she was the nurse assigned to Fraser's care. So she found a spare long-sleeved, high cut top, though it was very tight so she refused to wear it in front of Fraser, at the back of her locker. She pressed it into Chantelle's hands.

"Could you please wear that under your scrubs, please?" she asked her. Chantelle seemed confused, as Serena knew she would be. "Just trust me."

So she obeyed and put it on under her scrubs. "Why are you being so careful, Ms. Campbell?" Chantelle asked, the childish quality leaving her voice as she seemed to realise the extent of Serena's fear, for her own safety and Chantelle's.

Serena grasped Chantelle's hands and looked straight into her face. She didn't really care that she had to appear off her head right about now. "Promise me you'll be careful around Mr. Pickering, Chantelle," she implored her. "Promise me you won't let him even touch you."

"I promise," Chantelle vowed. The confusion ebbed away from her face, and she seemed to realise what had happened. "Ms. Campbell, did he...did he rape you?" she got out clumsily.

The direct question took Serena by surprise, and she did not answer. She couldn't give Chantelle any answers. But she knew she wouldn't have to say anything to Chantelle for her to know, and for her to know to keep it quiet.

Serena was surprised when the young nurse pulled her into her arms, and she had to stem the tears. "Don't tell Ric, or Hanssen, or Michael, please?" she asked. "In fact, can you just keep it between us?"

"Of course. It can be our little secret."

* * *

**Hope this is still alright!  
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thank you very much to everyone who has read, followed and reviewed this! And if updates start becoming a bit random -ie. at 2 in the morning - the broadband keeps cutting out during the day because of the storm damage from a week ago!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Chantelle, as ordered by Serena, left her with a torch to tend to her patients on the ward. Serena sat in a chair with her head in her hands, trying to regain the composure that slipped when Chantelle worked out why she was so uptight. She watched the circle of light shake with her hand, and she realised just how far she had come in eighteen years.

Eighteen years ago, she was hiding in her flat, trying to make sense of what he did to her. She was seeing the results of the pregnancy test she ran on herself. She was coming to terms with the fact that her baby – the result of her being ruthlessly attacked – would grow up with one of two upbringings: no knowledge of who her father was, or the knowledge that her father was a rapist.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and resurfacing memories. "Serena," she heard Ric's deep, calming voice. "You have a visitor," he smiled when she turned to face him. She was suddenly aware of the hot tears on her cheeks, the ones she didn't remember shedding, and wiped them away hastily. She got up and followed him out to the ward.

At the nurses' station stood Eleanor Campbell, weighed down by what appeared to be a very, very heavy rucksack. Serena shined the small torch at her daughter, whose long hair was frizzy and knotted, terrorised by the awful weather outside. "I took the heavy duty torches for you," Eleanor smiled gently. "All three of them, because I know you can't stand being in the dark. And I made a big flask of lentil soup, cut up some of the tiger bread, cold pizza, and a packet of chocolate chip cookies, too."

Serena just smiled her first true smile all day. "You know me too well," she smirked.

"I took some bottles of Coke and some crisps as well, since it'll be ages before any of you get any coffee, and it's the only other thing in the house with caffeine. I'm guessing there's nothing worse than dead on their feet nurses, so that's for them," Eleanor gave her mother the rucksack, and Serena almost dropped it, amazed by the weight her girl carried across to the hospital.

"You shouldn't have taken that all the way across town. It's a wonder it didn't break your back!" she scolded the teenager gently, but with a soft, loving smile. "How many buses did you have to take to get here?"

"Three, but it was fine. I was just thinking that the hospital would be one of the first places to lose power, since it's on the edge of the city, so I packed this stuff just in case."

The kindness touched Serena quite deeply. Maybe it was because she was already feeling fragile, but the gesture almost brought her to tears again. "Come here," she sighed, and pulled Eleanor into a tight hug. "I love you," she whispered, just in case she needed reminding.

"Love you too, Mum," Eleanor smiled into her mother's neck. Serena caught a glimpse of Fraser over Eleanor's shoulder, and he was not keeping his eyes to himself, so to speak. She came very aware of Eleanor's wet top, jacket and jeans, and how clingy they would be.

"Eleanor, you need to get out of here," Serena urged her. "It's not safe in the dark, in case you trip over a bed or something," she invented, recalling Ric's reasons for attempting to remove Fraser from the main bulk of the ward. "Go home, and if there's still no power, make soup for your tea, on the camp stove that's in the shed. Just remember, don't open the fridge or the freezer," she reminded her, cupping her face in her unusually gentle hands.

"Mum?" Eleanor asked, obviously picking up on her sudden change of attitude. She frowned at Serena. "Mum, are you alright?" Serena was momentarily blinded as a torch light moved across her face. "You're as white as a sheet."

"I'm fine," she reassured Eleanor, rubbing the top of her daughter's arm gently. "I'm just tired, hungry and deprived of sugar," she smiled, and Eleanor grinned at her. "So don't worry. Go home, and be _safe_. No touching the breaker, even if the power's still down, and make sure you change out of these wet clothes when you get home. Understand me?"

She hugged Eleanor once again and bid her goodbye, warning her again about the breaker as she left. She opened the rucksack and pulled out the industrial strength torches, and flooded light across the ward. They were almost as strong as half-light. She could clearly see what was going on around her, and it put her a little at ease.

She kept an eye on Chantelle, who was checking Fraser's pulse with her fingers. She watched carefully; the man was a piece of work at the best of times, never mind cooped up in here with the woman he sexually assaulted. Then he shouted at Chantelle: "Oi, retract the claws, you stupid little bitch!"

Serena felt her blood pressure rise, and strode over to him, much to her displeasure. "Let me see your wrist," she snapped. She examined it and found nothing untoward. Chantelle had probably just scuffed him with her nail very briefly, and it couldn't have been painful if there was no mark. "There's no sign that Nurse Lane's nails dug into your skin," she concluded.

"I swear, Ms. Campbell, I hardly touched him. My nails aren't even long enough to hurt anyone anymore," she defended herself, holding up a hand to prove her point.

"It's alright, Chantelle," Serena assured her in a slightly protective, motherly fashion. "As for you, Mr. Pickering," she snarled at him, forcing herself to look at him. "You will watch your language on my ward, and you will treat all staff – that's both doctors and nurses – with the utmost respect. Have I made myself plain?"

He glared at her, challenging her to do something about it without giving this sick, twisted game away to her colleagues. So she lowered her voice so that only Chantelle and Fraser could hear her. "Do not push your luck. I have the authority to have you removed from this department, and you are extremely lucky I did not discharge you and send you to St. James' last night. So, watch your language, mind your manners, and keep your hands to yourself, or so help me, there will be hell to pay," she hissed at him in her fury.

Chantelle simply stared at her for a moment. The young nurse had never seen a furious Serena Campbell, who was too angry to shout. Ric appeared behind Chantelle, and asked, "Is there a problem here? Chantelle? Serena?"

"No, Ric," Serena lied. "I was just explaining to Mr. Pickering that we do not accept the verbal abuse of any member of staff, particularly a nurse who is doing her best to look after several patients under very difficult conditions."

"Ah," Ric said, looking at the two women looking stonily at the patient. "Well, I'm afraid Ms. Campbell is right. We take that sort of thing very seriously. This is the only warning you will get," he cautioned Fraser. "Serena, Chantelle, can I have a word please?"

So they followed him into the consultants' office, where he turned to face them for an explanation. "He swore at Chantelle, and I stepped in, since she never stands up for herself," Serena sighed.

"That wasn't what I was going to ask. I've treated him before, so I know he's a pain in the backside. I was going to ask you what is going on here. You avoid him like the plague until you have to go over and caution him for mistreating Chantelle?" he raised his eyebrows. "He's Eleanor's father, and yet you didn't let her know he was here."

"Like I'd let _that_ anywhere near my daughter," Serena snapped, immediately regretting her short temper. She felt Chantelle's hand around her fingers, squeezing them in support, telling her she could trust Ric.

"What did he do to you that makes you detest him like this?" he asked her softly, trying to get it out of her. She felt like she could throw up, had she had a full stomach rather than an empty one. "He's even managed to get you into a panic attack, for crying out loud!" he almost shouted at her. He looked at their hands, Chantelle's fingers around Serena's in a gesture that was both a comfort to Serena and a plea for back up from Chantelle.

"Come on," he cried. "You had a child with him! You must have felt something other than hatred for the man!"

Serena said nothing. She couldn't say the words she so desperately wanted to get out of her system. So she simply ignored the questions he was asking in his roundabout fashion. She went to collect one of the industrial torches, and started to head out of the ward. "Where are you going?" Ric called after her, a puzzled look on his face.

"It's quiet enough up here, but I'm sure Michael could use a hand on AAU. Their ward is probably filling up!" she called back, and she walked as fast as she could out of Keller and into the corridors. She reached the stairs and raced down them, wanting as far away from that mess she called her past as she possibly could.

She paused before she entered AAU, shining her torch in the door window to assess the state of the situation here. Hanssen was helping out, and Michael was surely working his butt off somewhere, but there were many patients panicking, making their jobs more difficult. There were footsteps behind her, and her heart started racing.

Had he followed her down here? Had he somehow slipped out after watching her leave. Slowly, with her arm defensively guarding her body in case he hit her, she turned to face the person behind her. She shone her torch at his face and sighed exasperatedly. "For heaven's sake, Michael!" she breathed impatiently. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Why aren't you on Keller? Ric texted me, told me you practically ran out of the ward," he informed her.

"I came to see if you needed help," she retorted, walking onto AAU, picking up a file from the pile still to be dealt with. "So, Mrs. Hall," she said, approaching the patient in bed three. "I'm guessing the lights went out when you were coming down the stairs?" she assumed, reading "fractured ribs due to accident on stairs" as cause of injury in her file.

The woman nodded, and Serena replied, "Well, not to worry. We'll have you on painkillers and ready to go in no time," with a smile, still holding her torch as she one-handedly felt the patient's ribs.

"Serena!" Michael's American voice rang out, catching Hanssen's attention as well as hers. She spun to face him, daring him to question her in front of the whole unit. "My office. Now."

"You have no authority over me," she snarled, once again defending herself where it was not needed. She moved on to the next patient.

"No, but you just gatecrashed onto my ward," he reminded her, as if she wasn't aware of her own actions. But it occurred to her that she wasn't actually fully aware, because she was running as fast as she could from her past, to anywhere that was willing to take her. "This is my department, and while you're here, you'll follow my instructions."

This was a territorial front for something else, Serena realised. He was not this possessive of AAU. In fact, he took all the help he could get on this ward of chaos. So she did as he told her. She let him lead her to the AAU consultant's office with her torch, her knuckles white around the handle as she grasped onto it for dear life.

"Now, what the hell has got into you?" he demanded. "Stop running for a minute, and tell me what's going on."

* * *

**Hope this is still OK!  
Please leave a review and tell me how I'm doing!  
Sarah x**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating - college started! Although I am proud of myself - I wrote this whole chapter on a touch screen Windows phone while on a moving bus. **

**Thanks to every who has read this, and followed and reviewed!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena gave him her stare, and she silently told him to leave the issue alone. But, of course, he ignored the wordless warning. He seemed to realise he would have to try a different, more extreme approach if he wanted to get through to see what was wrong.

He locked the door to the office and drew the blinds. "Michael," she warned him. "Don't do this. Please." But still he continued, gently pulling her torch from her hand. He turned it off, and they were plunged into a confined darkness. Serena immediately felt her chest constrict again. "Put the torch back on, Michael!" she tried to shout but her voice came out rough and raspy.

She stumbled back from him, terrified he was going to hurt her. She was sure, in the back of her mind, Michael Spence wouldn't even dream of hurting a woman like that. The threat he created had changed her way of thinking until she was convinced she would soon feel a blow to the face or a pair of hands digging into her arms. She felt her way to the wall, as far away from him as she could get, and leaned there, clutching her chest.

Footsteps drew closer to her as she struggled to take in air. Hands fell onto her shoulders, and a torch light soon flooded the room again. "Jeez, Serena," he shook his head. "And you think you're fine, do you?" She could not reply to his challenge for trying to gain a decent oxygen supply. "OK, alright," he whispered soothingly. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Promise."

"Proved your point now?" Serena snapped at him, angry at how he proved she wasn't fine with the way things were right now.

"Breathe with me," he commanded gently, breathing deeply and slowly. She could feel herself breathing in deeply, following his lead as he tried to calm her. Once she could breathe and think, the realisation of what he'd just done hit her.

"What do you think you're playing at?!" she demanded much more forcefully than she felt capable of.

"You panic when you're in the dark, and the second I locked the door you jumped to conclusions," he reminded her of her own reactions. "You've been attacked before, haven't you?"

She didn't admit to what Fraser did to her but, like Chantelle, Michael understood now. He had forced, well, terrified, it out of her, even though she said nothing about it. "What happened?" he asked softly, guiding her by her shaking hand to a chair.

She sat down and put her head in her hands; she felt a bit ashamed of the reactions she took to darkness and being locked up with a man. "Have you even spoken about it?" he asked, but it was clear in his voice that he was pretty sure she hadn't.

She forced her mouth to work again. She started slowly, pushing the words out steadily and deliberately so she wouldn't freeze again. "It was eighteen years ago," she confessed to him. "I learned to live with it a long, long time ago. There isn't really anything worth a discussion."

"Eighteen years?" Michael repeated. "Your daughter's, what, seventeen?" he asked her. Serena would not look at him. She wouldn't allow him to see the fear and pain in her heart through her eyes. It was the only thing, aside from the fear of the dark and the panic attacks, that gave the game away for her.

She sighed, and tried to find the strength to face it all. That was the biggest problem here: in eighteen years, Serena never once turned around and faced it. She constantly tried to forget it and spent her life trying in vain to outrun the memory, but it always caught up with her. Perhaps it was time to finally confront it. Maybe if she uttered the words, she could finally begin to move on.

"He raped me," she whispered. "There, I've said it. Happy now?"

"No, not particularly," he retorted. "Why didn't you tell Ric, or Hanssen? Hanssen would've had him shifted off your ward if you told him the truth. Hell, _I _would've taken him onto AAU overnight had I'd known about him," he explained to her gently.

"I couldn't trust myself to operate on him," she blurted out for the first time since the temptation appeared. "Do you know what that _feels_like, knowing if you had the opportunity, you would take another person's life?"

"There's no shame in it, Serena," he assured her. "God knows if that happened to any of my girls, or my ex-wife, I would hunt down the S.O.B. and slaughter him. Right and wrong aren't so clear cut in your position."

"I guess," she concurred. Her own weakness terrified her, and it was the fact that someone else was seeing it that made that fear so horrible.

There was a sharp knock at the door and Serena quickly regained what little composure she had left to her. Hanssen entered quietly, and asked Michael, "Is everything alright? I could hear Ms. Campbell shouting."

"I'm fine, Mr. Hanssen," she lied. She was far from fine, but Hanssen would not get to know that, if Michael was to leave her any say in the matter.

Michael heaved an impatient sigh, one that caught Hanssen's attention. "Have you something you wish to say?"

Michael shot Serena a glare, which she returned, just daring him to let the secret out. "I would like Fraser Pickering transferred to AAU," he declared. Serena could hardly believe what she was hearing. Michael was actually taking one of her patients onto his unit so she didn't have to suffer so badly. "On the condition that Ms. Campbell explains the situation to you."

Of course, there was a catch. After all, Michael Spence rarely gave anything without a catch.

"She already has," Hanssen replied, clearly confused. His dark eyes scanned her face, looking for an answer she was not willing to spell out for him. She knew nothing of how he would take this news. Would her reassign her temporarily? Send her home? Move Fraser? Discharge him and have him admitted to another hospital?

"The _whole_situation," the American clarified. "Yes, he is Eleanor's father, but she hasn't told you the circumstances surrounding that."

Hanssen just looked at Serena, waiting for her explanation. "There was more to your relationship than you told me?" he demanded.

"We've never been in a relationship," she snapped. "He was my best friend's step-brother. He was never my boyfriend, my husband, anything like that. If anything, he was a bit like _my_ brother," she started to make the extent of this betrayal known to Michael. The fact she thought of him as a brother and then he did _that_ to her explained some of her extreme anger and fear of him.

"And you had a child with him regardless?" Hanssen asked, clearly puzzled now.

"Let's just say that my choice never came into it, and leave it at that," she answered shortly. She could hardly meet the man's eyes as she said it. They were the opposite of Fraser's - dark and deep - but they were just as piercing. She subconsciously shied away from the tall man standing over her.

"And why did you keep this information from me? I would have had him transferred from Keller, or even to St. James'. Mr. Spence even seems willing to relieve you of Mr. Pickering."

In her heart, she had honestly thought she was strong enough to endure it. Maybe if the light hadn't been taken from her she would've been. She didn't know if she could have handled this differently. All she knew was that the idea of going back onto Keller with _him_up there scared her half to death.

"I thought I could deal with him, but clearly I can't," she finally gave in. Michael was right; she had nothing to be ashamed of by protecting herself. Even Ric had hinted that the man was vindictive. He would understand.

"Would you feel more comfortable if Mr. Pickering spent his time in this hospital on AAU rather than Keller?" Hanssen asked her. Slowly she nodded her consent to have him removed from her care and her ward. "Very well. I will have a porter collect him when we have electricity. In the meantime, Ms. Campbell," he addressed her directly. "I want you to remain here. It isn't fair to send you up to Keller until such a time that Fraser Pickering has been removed."

She nodded her agreement. There was something unusual about how Hanssen was regarding her. It was not disappointment or even pity. It seemed to be pride that touched his eyes. Was he actually proud of her for standing up for her right to feel safe at work? Even though it was to cause inconvenience to other departments and individuals?

Hanssen left without another word, leaving Michael to break the silence left by how she had just shattered in front of his very eyes.

She felt tears sting her eyes, and she finally let them escape. She'd been running without a backwards glance for years, and Michael had forced her to look over her own shoulder at the destruction that had been inflicted on her.

To her utmost surprise, she felt Michael's hand on hers in a gesture of comfort. She realised now who he was: a father, a surgeon and a healer. He could never hurt her, she realised. He was cocky, and probably needed his backside kicked into gear, but he wasn't vicious like Fraser was. He was even taking him off her hands, a favour for which she was extremely grateful.

"Come here," he sighed, opening his arms to her. She quickly assessed the risk in her head and decided she was safe enough here. Michael Spence was not one to condone the sort of thing that happened to her, let alone do it himself.

So with great trepidation, she walked into his loose embrace. He was still not her favourite person on the planet, and she had no doubt that she wasn't his either, but the fact remained that he did have the decency to comfort her while she bled.

His arms wrapped themselves very loosely around her body, and she knew he was being cautious so as not to scare her again.

It was at that moment, in Michael's light embrace, that Serena Campbell finally accepted her own fragility. Because, right now, she was bruised, battered, vulnerable and very, very fragile. She refused to wear the mask anymore. She realised now it was not her fault. She didn't cause this mess. She was not in the wrong to tell the truth.

Michael had finally convinced her she had every right to speak out. She saw it now. No-one would think any less of her for what happened to her so long before any of these people knew her. In fact, if Hanssen's reaction was anything to go by, their reactions could have been supportive rather than critical. That was why showing weakness terrified her – it was too easily turned into a weapon. She had a nasty feeling Fraser would turn this particular weakness into the weapon for her destruction, and she feared he would use someone else to get to her.

She only just managed to convince herself that Chantelle was safe enough under Ric's watchful eye. She let herself be protected by the one person she would never have picked out as her guardian. He was obnoxious, rude, womanising and crass. His only redeeming qualities were his loyalty to his children and his unsaid promise to be a defender if the need were to arise. But, for now, he was all she had to protect her, and she had to trust him.

* * *

**Hope this is still OK!  
Please leave a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Sorry for the delay in updates. College starting to get in the way as much as school did. But I have taken to writing fics on the bus to keep me awake at quarter to eight in the morning, so hopefully things will speed up a little :)**

**Thank you to everyone who has read, favourited, followed and reviewed this. **

**Sarah x**

* * *

There was a knock at the door and Michael shone the torch at the person who entered. It was just Eddi, looking quite confused. "Ric called Sacha on his mobile. Something about Fraser Pickering going walkabout?" she asked.

"Oh, God," Serena sighed. She knew now what he had been up to. She knew now exactly what had happened. "Did Chantelle go looking for him?" she asked Eddi, dreading the answer.

"Yeah. Nobody's seen her for ages," Eddi replied. Serena took the torch from Michael, appearing angry as the adrenaline rushed through her system. She wasn't just angry. She was livid. But she was also fearful, both for Chantelle and herself. She knew what he was capable of, and the thought of that happening to Chantelle was horrible.

"Serena," Michael warned her in a low tone. "This is not a good plan. Let security deal with it," he suggested.

"They have their hands full already, Michael," Eddi reminded him. "The power's out, so there'll be missing kids and pensioners and God only knows who else. They'll be backed up." Serena raised a triumphant eyebrow at the American, who just shook his head at her. She turned to fully face him.

"Michael, I know it isn't a wise plan, but what do you expect me to do? If you think I'm going to stand idly by while my nurse might be in danger, you are sadly mistaken," she told him, her voice as sharp as any razor blade.

"Fine!" he snapped. She smiled knowingly at him, as if she knew what was going to happen. But she actually had no clue how this was going to end. She didn't know whether Chantelle would escape unharmed, or if Chantelle was even in his company; she didn't know whether the whole point was to lure her in using Chantelle, or if he intended on harming them both.

Unexpectedly, he pulled her into his arms. "Be safe," he whispered into her ear. "Be as safe as you can. If you're not back in an hour, we're coming after you," he warned her, deadly serious.

Eddi just looked bemused, clearly wondering what all this fear and upset was over. Serena met her gaze and immediately regretted it. The younger woman was both curious and fearful, but it was only the fear of whatever Serena was so scared of. "Michael," Eddi looked up at him, breaking the mutual stare between her and Serena. "What the bloody hell is going on?" she demanded.

Michael looked around to Serena and she silently let him know that telling Eddi the truth wasn't a smart idea. "She's just scared of the dark," Michael gave Eddi some false reassurance. "Everything is fine."

"Then why do you think Chantelle is in danger?" she persisted. "This is more than just Serena being afraid of the dark. What is going on? I'll ask Luc and Sacha if you don't tell me. I'll ask Hanssen," she threatened.

"Luc and Sacha don't have a clue what's going on, and you can't tell them. They need to do their jobs," Serena replied sternly. "I'm about to explain the situation to Hanssen, but as far as he gets to know, I'm going back to Keller. Do you understand me?" she added.

"He'll find out, Serena," Eddi warned her. "You know what Hanssen's like. He finds everything out in the end."  
"And I'll accept the consequences of my actions when he does," she promised. "But for now, Eddi, for Chantelle's sake, you must not tell him that I'm going looking for her and Fraser. Because he _will _put a stop to it." Eddi just shook her head in disbelief. But then she nodded in agreement to keep her mouth shut. "And I want you to stay where Michael, Sacha, Luc or Hanssen can see you, just in case Fraser comes down here," Serena added. Eddi opened her mouth to argue but Serena raised her hand to silence her. "Don't ask me questions I don't have time to answer. Just trust me."

"OK," Eddi sighed. "OK, I trust you." Serena gave her a slightly maternal smile and pulled her into a tight cuddle. "Christ, what's got into you?"

"Just keep yourself safe," she whispered in the nurse's ear. "You have no idea what's wandering the hospital right now. If you come across him or Chantelle, tell one of the men immediately. Don't let the women deal with it. I'm the only woman he's ever getting to hurt."

"OK," Eddi repeated for a third time. "I'll bear it in mind. And Serena," she added, in an unusually soft tone. "Make sure you keep out of harm's way, too."

Serena said nothing, just holding Eddi tightly. She drew some sort of comfort from her. She was hard and loud and unyielding, but she was also funny, beautiful and full of life. She could see why Luc had fallen in love with her. For some reason, she felt the same way about Eddi as she did about Chantelle, even though they worked on separate wards and had had their fair share of difficulties.

She pulled back from Eddi, and turned to Michael. "Thank you. It might have been harsh, but I think I needed that," she smiled. "Keep her safe," she ordered him.

She left the consultant's office and stepped onto AAU. Hanssen was giving a nurse instructions, so she approached him when he was finished. "Mr. Hanssen," she addressed him. "I'm going back up to Keller now."  
"Is that a wise idea when Fraser is wandering the corridors?" he challenged her. She had expected this. She hadn't expected to get off lightly with Hanssen – only a fool would actually believe the Swede to be a walkover. "After all, you are probably the one he has left his bed in search of."

"I'll only be upstairs," she lied. "I'll be fine. I promise." It was an unsustainable promise, but it was the one that could well be the saviour of Chantelle.

"Only if you're sure," he said to her seriously. "You are perfectly welcome to remain here until he is found, considering I did tell you to stay."  
"That was only because Fraser was on Keller," she quickly retorted. "He's not there anymore, and I have patients I need to attend to," she lied. She placed a hand on his arm, because she knew he was worried about her. She hated other people worrying themselves over her. She was not a child; she had to face these things for herself. For her efforts she received an odd look, halfway between a glare and a soft smile. "I'll be OK."

"As long as you are reasonably comfortable with returning, you may. But the second he sets foot on Keller, I want you off the ward. Have I made myself clear?" he asked her sternly, but with a hint of softness that proved her suspicion that he actually was worried for her and probably Chantelle.

"Almost crystal," she smiled at him. That first word was going to get her out of a lot of trouble when he found out she was looking for Fraser. She did not look back when she reached the double doors of AAU. She was scared she would bottle it and either stay here or dart up to Keller. She couldn't do that. She was doing this for Chantelle.

There was a loud thumping noise and the hospital was suddenly flooded in a dim light. The back-up generators finally kicked in, then. That would make her task easier.

She stood in the middle of the corridor and methodically planned her search. He was not going to take someone everyone knew onto a ward. It was too obvious. Bathrooms were too easily accessible to others, so he would not go there. He would have had a hard time finding the basement in the dark, so that was out, too. Her best bet was the storage rooms. She decided to start with the third floor. Medically, he was probably in no fit state to use the stairs.

Alone, Serena climbed the stairs, dreading what she believed could have happened to Chantelle. She tried to remind herself that Chantelle could have just lost her bearings and she was fine, but then she remembered who else she was looking for.

She reached the third floor and started opening doors. They were all supposed to be unlocked from the outside, as the hospital was in such a state just now, so she would know the door when she got to it; it would be locked from the inside.

Ten minutes later, she pushed down the handle of a drug store. It was locked. She pressed her ear to the door, and she heard the muffled voice she still had nightmares over. Her hands shook on the handle, trying again to see if it would open. She felt her brain cloud over with fear, and she knew then, in her gut, that someone was going to get hurt. She didn't know who, but someone wasn't coming out of this in one piece, and she would be damned if she was going to let young Chantelle suffer at his hands.

There was nothing she wouldn't do to keep Chantelle from harm. She couldn't bear the thought of all of her sweet innocence being stripped from her in one fair swoop. So Serena started ramming the the door, over and over again. She felt her shoulder and upper arm bruise and the muscles ache in protest, but she would not give up, until she fell in the door, and crashed on the floor.

She groaned in pain and opened her eyes to find a pair of bare feet and a pair of white and pink trainers. She was definitely in the right room.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please leave a review and tell me what you're thinking!  
Sarah x**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read/reviewed/followed, and please don't murder me for this chapter! :O**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena groggily sat up, quickly assessing the damage. She had felt her ribs crack, and she was winded from the fall. She felt blood trickling down her face, so she'd obviously hit her head. But she ignored her own injuries for the moment. She looked around to see Chantelle crouched on the floor with a cut lip and bruised arms.

She looked the other direction and saw Fraser standing over them both. "What did you do to her?" Serena demanded quietly, dreading the answer. But it wasn't Fraser who chose to speak. It was Chantelle.

"He's not done what he did to you, if that's what you're getting at," Chantelle responded, all innocence gone from her eyes. She genuinely looked terrified. He had obviously threatened her with God only knows what, but Serena silently thanked whoever and whatever was up there looking over her for not letting that happen to Chantelle.

Serena turned on Chantelle and felt her face gently, feeling for damage to her mouth, jaw and cheekbones. "Right," she decided quietly. "Your jaw is fractured. Open your mouth," she ordered, gesturing with her fingers for her to comply as quickly as possible before they were sure to be interrupted. She shone the torch straight into her mouth. "The good news is that all your teeth are still intact, which is quite lucky considering how hard he clearly hit you."

"He says he's going to kill me," Chantelle whispered, understandably petrified as he lurked in the corner while Serena assessed the damage he'd done.

Serena sighed and gently pushed a stray lock of blonde hair behind the young woman's ear. "I won't let him," she promised her. "I'll let you in on a secret. He promised to kill me eighteen years ago, and I'm still standing here. He ran rings around me, even did what he did to me, but he never killed me."

She turned to look at Fraser, who had quietly barricaded the door as she knew he would. She hadn't tried to stop him. To put a true end to this, she knew she was going to have to face him. That was what he wanted. What he'd wanted since she appeared as his doctor. There was no other way to finish it. Kidnapping Chantelle was a ploy to make her follow him, because he'd seen for himself how protective she was of the nurse. She just was thankful that he hadn't chosen to take Eleanor.

Serena stood up slowly, wincing as her ribs protested, and faced Fraser. "I'm here now. Let Chantelle go," she ordered him. She expected him to deny her this request anyway, but she was shocked when it was not him who spoke next.

"No," Chantelle said, in an unexpectedly firm tone. "We come out of this together, Serena. We'll come out of this room together and in one piece," she asserted. Serena found herself feeling some kind of extreme gratitude for Chantelle's courage. Fraser looked taken aback at it as well. He seemed to have assumed that she would not be courageous, that she would fall with the first strike.

"Who was the girl who came on the ward earlier? The one who brought you torches?" Fraser asked, his voice shaking as much as his hands as adrenaline coursed his body.

"She's my daughter," Serena replied cautiously, careful not to tell him the whole truth. Just then, Serena's phone rang. She silenced it. Answering it was not worth the trouble it was surely going to cause, and anyway, it was Hanssen and she wasn't prepared to argue with him just now.

"What did you tell them?" he demanded, suddenly panicking. She soon realised this was about to turn nasty, and someone was definitely getting hurt, and that, whatever happened, she would not allow that someone to be Chantelle.

"Who?" she bluffed. He nodded to the phone in her pocket, scrambling through the supplies until he found himself a weapon: a scalpel. He held it out threateningly at her. "Oh, Hanssen. Well, I told him the truth."

That did it. That snapped his temper. She was supposed to have kept it a secret; it was an order she had tormented herself obliging to until now. He advanced on her, waving his weapon through the air with a surprising amount of force for a sick man. Serena raised her arm, and held the ripping of her shirt and a sharp pain as the blade broke the skin of her arm.

He backed off, and advanced again, but this time she was not ready. Chantelle behind her managed to topple a metal rack on top of him, but the damage had been done. She felt the pain in her neck where the scalpel slashed her skin open. She became dizzy and fell over. She put her hand to her neck and felt how much blood was coming from the wound – too much. As she floated between consciousness and passing out, she heard him ask her, "Did the mighty Serena Campbell just fall down at my feet?"

She just managed to reply to him, her voice raspy and weak. "I'm not...scared of you...anymore," she answered. For the first time, the statement was true. He could do no more to her. He had raped her, he had manipulated her and now he had killed her. "Chantelle," she reached out, feeling for her hand. She heard the young nurse searching for something to help stem some of the bleeding.

"I'm here," Chantelle assured her, pressing cotton swabs hard into Serena's neck. She went into the surgeon's pocket and pulled out a phone. She put it to her ear, and waited for the answer Serena so desperately needed. "Michael," she sighed. "We're in the storage room on the left of the corridor opposite Keller Theatre One," she told him quickly. "Serena's been slashed across the neck and she's seriously hurt."

She hung up the phone after Michael seemed to assure her everything would be alright. "Serena, try and stay awake," Chantelle reminded her. That was easier said than done as she drifted out of consciousness. Slowly, the room around her became hazy, Chantelle's words undecipherable. All she was aware of was Chantelle's free hand in hers and the pressure she was applying to her neck.

The last thing she heard before everything went dark was the sound of the barricade on the door giving way and Michael, Luc and Eddi falling into the room. As she fell into unconsciousness, she wanted to tell Eddi off for coming here where she knew Fraser was. But then she remembered Luc was there, and he wasn't about to let anything happen to his Eddi. Michael had been right in what he'd told her on AAU earlier: she was not wrong to hate him.

But she was stronger than him, and she wasn't going to let him kill her like this. She was alone in her thoughts now, the outside world gone to her. The pain was gone, but only because she'd lost the energy to feel that agony in her neck. They were going to save her. Michael, Luc, Hanssen, Ric, Jac...whoever was needed, she trusted implicitly. After all, what choice did she have?

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please leave a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: This is Chapter 9, and as you will read, there's a hint of Leddi in it, as well as some Hanssen and Ric :)**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Pain. Inside and out. It was the first thing she felt. Vividly aware of the cuts on her arm and neck, she didn't want to move. Then she a soft noticed pressure on her hand. Curious, she forced her eyes to open. She expected Eleanor. Maybe even Chantelle. Or Michael, considering how much he knew. But she did _not_ expect Ric to be the one squeezing her hand while she was unconscious.

She hazily zoned her vision in on his face. "You're awake," he gave her a soft smile.

"Chantelle?" Serena immediately asked. "Chantelle. Is she alright?"

"She's fine. She's had her jaw wired shut, and it's annoying her, but she'll be fine," he reassured her. His gaze became penetrative and she just knew what was coming. She reverted her gaze to something else, anything else, rather than watch him see right through her façade. She felt her neck, and winced when she touched the raised bump. "You'll be left with scars on your neck and arm," he told her gently. "Sorry."

She gave a single humourless laugh and replied, "I'll consider them mementos." She looked down on her scarred arm and found directly beneath the now permanent mark, written in what appeared to be Jungle Green metallic eye liner, _Stay Strong _in loosely spirally letters. She looked back up at Ric, raising an eyebrow.

"Chantelle did that," he smiled at her. "You'll be proud of her. She managed to keep just enough blood in your body to save you. If it hadn't been for her, you wouldn't even have made it to theatre." He gazed at her intensely again, and she sighed heavily.

"Go on, then. I'm assuming Michael and Hanssen have told you," she said. "Spit it out before it gags you."

"Why didn't you say anything?" he demanded gently. "When I came back during the power cut, why didn't you tell me everything? I could see you were terrified, but you wouldn't let me in," he explained to her, wrapping his other hand around hers. She didn't want to go here, back to this place where she was so vulnerable. "Contrary to what seems to be stuck in your head, Serena, I do care about you."

That was it. She couldn't hold back the tears anymore. All she could do was wipe them away the moment they spilled over. She couldn't answer him, simply because she didn't have the answers he wanted from her. "Well," he continued. "I know you're worried we'll see you differently. But you'll always just be Serena Campbell to me. Annoyingly efficient and very manipulative, but funny, charming, playful and with a wicked sense of humour to boot,. You have to be the only person I know who can have a blazing row and do it with a smile," he grinned.

She gave him a watery smile, and responded by returning the pressure on her hand. "Eleanor," she sighed. She felt weak now; her body was growing tired after the trauma it had only just survived. "Where's Eleanor?"

"She'll be sleeping in the on-call room," he answered her. "She's fine, but I'm not going to wake her just yet. She didn't sleep last night while you were knocked out. She spent the night drinking coffee, eating crisps and driving me crazy."

"Is Eddi alright? I told her not to go with Luc and Michael to find us but she went anyway," she explained to him.

"Ask her yourself," he smiled at her. He went and opened the door, and Eddi and Luc stepped in. Luc, of all people. Now she knew people actually did care about her. All she knew of Luc was that he was mad for Eddi, and he didn't do sickbed visits and he didn't do attachment. Eddi immediately stepped over and pulled her into a careful cuddle. She noticed Luc's uncomfortable expression over Eddi's shoulder and smiled slightly.

"I don't bite," she grinned at him. He returned the gesture with a tiny smirk. When Eddi finally released her, she beckoned for him to come to her, and pulled him into her arms. She felt a great debt to Michael, Luc and Eddi for finding her. "Thank you, both of you," she said sincerely. She patted his back gently and let him free.

"I'm going to have to go," Ric announced. "I have to be in theatre in twenty minutes. I'll come and see you later, Serena," he promised her before he slipped out. This all felt very surreal for some reason. There was no doubt in her mind that everything she remembered was real, but still it felt rather strange.

"I brought you chocolate," Luc said unexpectedly. "I didn't know if you'd want it, but Eddi insists it's a woman's miracle cure for everything from a cold to the day from hell."

"That and wine," Serena replied.

"I prefer tequila," Eddi chuckled. "But I think Ric might bang our heads together if he caught us with drink, don't you?"

"Hmmm, just," Serena said thoughtfully. Ric's words and actions were bugging her now. She could remember him pulling her from the floor as she struggled to breathe in the darkness as it swallowed her up. She could still hear him growing frustrated with the lack of information after Serena lost her temper with Fraser when he swore at Chantelle.

Eddi looked at Serena's arm questioningly. She wasn't staring at the wound there. She was staring at the message written there. "Chantelle. Need I say any more?" Serena asked her.

"Well, that sounds about right," Luc said. "I hate to say it, but I think some people might enjoy the peace and quiet while she can't speak. She's lovely and everything, but she does go on a bit," he said.

Serena couldn't stop herself from chuckling. Eddi looked at her watch, and her face fell. "We have to get back to AAU, Serena," she groaned. "Michael's all uptight, so I don't think I want to annoy him today. We'll see you later," she promised, just as Ric had.

"OK, then. Thank Michael for me, will you?" she requested.

"Of course," answered Luc. The poor guy looked like he couldn't get out of there fast enough. She didn't take offence to it at all. In fact, she knew it was a rare thing for Luc to show any level of care. Everyone had said he was aloof in the extreme, but she knew that, beneath that, he really did care for others. For Eddi. For Sacha and Chrissie, probably. For Chantelle and Michael. Maybe even for Serena.

And as they left, Serena realised that Eddi had gone in against what she was told to do. She had to have known the risk, and yet she did it anyway. She must have known a nurse would be needed, and that Chantelle was hurt, and she was the most qualified nurse on AAU. She knew she could help so, regardless of Serena's solemn warning, she stepped up and helped to save her. And for that, Serena was immensely proud of the nurse.

Just as she began to lose herself in thought, there was a soft knock at the door and Henrik Hanssen entered, quietly shutting the door behind him. "I know you ought to be resting, so I will make this a quick visit," he said. Well, he didn't seem angry with her. But then, when did anyone really know what he was thinking about them? Answer: never.

He handed her a large envelope, which she opened to find a massive card with one of those grey teddies with the patches all over him. She opened it and found signatures and messages from many, many people. Michael. Ric. Chantelle. Eddi and Luc. Chrissie and Sacha. Jac Naylor. Mo and Jonny. Elliot Hope. Even Oliver Valentine and Tara Lo. And Hanssen, of course. Somehow, even Malick's name was on here, with a printed email. Someone must have phoned and told him, she guessed.

"Thank you," she whispered, slightly overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of people she rarely spoke to. Some she had even messed around or made their lives difficult. She found it odd how one incident could remind a group of people how to be there for each other. She looked up at Hanssen and moaned tiredly. "Get on with it, then. I know I said I was just heading up to Keller. I know I lied to you, for which I apologise. Though I still think it was a better option than leaving Chantelle in the hands of _that_," she mused as an afterthought.

"Actually," he replied very calmly, "I was intending on saying something entirely different. I planned to tell you that, even though it _was_ sheer stupidity to do it, you showed great courage in lying to me and seeking out the person who attacked you to save another from the same ordeal. And now you must keep that courage with you," he added.

Well. She hadn't been expecting that. But she knew what he was getting at; he was telling her that Eleanor needed to know now. It wasn't fair on her to let her see her mother in a hospital bed and not let her know that she was the man's daughter. "I'm going to have to tell her, aren't I? Eleanor. She'll want to know exactly why this happened."

"I suspect that will be the case, yes," he said, again very calm. "But if she is anything like her mother, she'll manage her emotions well." He gave her a rare smile. "The other thing is that, naturally, the police will want to speak with you. I believe they plan on charging Mr. Pickering with actual bodily harm, attempted murder and rape."

Now, that was something predictable, at least. "Mr. Hanssen, who operated on me?" she asked curiously.

"There was a slight complication in that you suffered such blood loss that your heart struggled, so Jac Naylor was the one helping with that. Eddi McKee insisted on scrubbing in, and Michael Spence completed the surgery," he explained to her. "Between them, they managed to save you."

He smiled slightly at her, and touched her shoulder lightly. "Stay strong," he told her, nodding at the green writing on her arm. "I'm beginning to believe that our Miss Lane is far wiser than many give her credit for."

"Oh, believe me, Mr. Hanssen, she's not stupid. She was the first to work out the truth."

He patted her shoulder again and left the room. She was left alone with her thoughts, and realised that the sooner she told Eleanor the truth, the better.

* * *

**Hope this is alright!  
Please leave a review and tell what you think!  
Sarah x**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this - much appreciated!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena heard the door open as she started to drift into an uncomfortable sleep. She looked up and found her daughter closing the door behind her, sitting down in the chair next to her ill mother. "Mum?" she whispered. She grabbed Serena's and and squeezed tightly, as if she was going to slip away from her

"I'm alright," Serena promised Eleanor without hesitation.

"You're so pale," Eleanor worried.

"I have lost a significant amount of blood, and my body has suffered quite considerable trauma," she stated, going into doctor mode to explain away her appearance. She realised then that it was time to come clean. Eleanor had spent her life contending with her mother's strange habits - keeping lights on all night, her inability to display any soft weaknesses - and she had the right to know why she grew up with those things. And she had to know why she'd come so close to losing her mum. It was clear in the teenager's face that she was absolutely terrified of losing her mum.

"What happened? How did you get hurt? Mr. Griffin was lovely and everything, but he said you'd be better explaining what happened," Eleanor repeated what Ric her told her.

"I went looking for a missing patient who I knew was a threat to others," Serena began. "I found him in a store cupboard with Nurse Lane, and he attacked me. Chantelle knocked a metal rack on top of him, but he got my neck and arm with a scalpel," she continued. "He's on AAU now, and I think Michael is to do his surgery."

"And how could you be so sure that he was dangerous?" the younger of them demanded.

"Past experience," Serena said, the bitterness still evident in her tone of voice. "I want you to listen to me, Eleanor, and I want you to understand that it has no bearing on how I feel about you," she warned her daughter. "Regardless of everything, I love you with all my heart, and you must remember that."

Eleanor just looked extremely confused by this point, so Serena simply continued with the task of telling the ugly truth of how her beautiful girl came to be. "Eighteen years ago, I was naive, and immature, and I thought nobody would try to harm me. But my best friend's step-brother...he...he...raped me," she finally came out with it. "A few weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant. That I was pregnant with a child as a result of that attack. And the other day he showed up here as a patient, and yesterday he assaulted me and Chantelle."

"And that baby was me?" Eleanor concluded. "Why didn't you just have an abortion? You were alone, and probably traumatised. I think if anybody had a right, you did," Eleanor said, and Serena knew she was carefully levelling her voice appear as calm as possible, but Serena knew her baby girl. And she knew she was furious. Not with her mother, but with the father who attacked her mum twice.

Serena touched her cheek lightly, looking into Eleanor's bright blue eyes. They were the opposite of her own dark ones, yet softer than her father's. "How could I punish my child for what her father is? It wouldn't have been fair. And you're the best thing that happened to me. You were the best possible outcome. You gave me a reason to keep living, to try and live normally despite what happened to me. And the first time I saw you on an ultrasound, I simply fell in love with you," she explained, honestly. She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks, mirroring her daughter's, and she knew then that Eleanor was more angry than she let on.

"Did you say he was on AAU?" she asked slowly. It twigged in Serena's mind what she was going to do, and she knew she had to try and stop her.

"Ellie," she warned solemnly. "He's not worth it. Don't bother with him."

Eleanor simply stood up, kissed her mother on the cheek and silently left the room. Serena's immediate thoughtless reaction was to pull her drip out and carefully get out of bed, and follow her out. She kept a hand on the wall to keep her steady and waited for a lift. She was a doctor, and she knew trying the stairs in her condition would be far from clever. She wasn't an idiot. She knew the risk she'd just taken by sneaking off of Keller. But she did it for Eleanor, to try and reach her before she reached Fraser.

She got in the lift, only to find Ric, who had clearly just come out of theatre. "What do you think you're doing?!" he demanded, slightly alarmed that she had jumped out of bed with no warning.

"You can lecture me later," she snapped before he even had time to open his mouth to reprimand her for leaving her bed. "Just get me to AAU," she told him, her tone almost pleading. He stared at her in shock for a moment but he did eventually oblige, pressing the button for the ground floor. She stumbled slightly, feeling very dizzy, but Ric caught her. He kept a hold of her waist to steady her, and for once, she would not resist his help. He was keeping her standing, and he was showing that he really did care for her.

He helped guide her to AAU, where all they saw was a ward full of people whose gazes were fixed on one bed. The bed where a man lay shackled to the railings by handcuffs. The bed where a seventeen-year-old girl was screaming at him. "How could you do that to her?!" Eleanor was shouting at him. "I'll tell you something, though. If I see you near her again, God help you," she growled protectively. She went to hit him, but Ric left Serena in Luc's grasp and restrained her, his arms tight around her, pinning her arms to her body as she shouted at Fraser.

"Eleanor," he said to her calmly. "Eleanor, don't do this. He doesn't care. He doesn't care how you feel about him. To him, you're nothing. Your mother is the one who needs you right now. Do you think this is good for her?!"

Something seemed to make sense to Eleanor very suddenly, because she turned around at the mention of her mum. She let Ric take her to Serena, where she clung to her, sobbing. Serena held her as tightly as her body would allow, her cuts aching in objection, her head going fuzzy from the strain. She planted a kiss in her messy brown hair, tears falling from her own eyes and she absorbed Eleanor's sobs.

Ric's eyes met Serena's and through her tears, she managed to tell him in a hoarse voice, "Thank you."

"No problem," he smiled softly. "Now, lets get you back onto Keller, shall we?" he suggested. Eleanor finally let go of her mother, and allowed Ric to put his arm around her waist again, pulling her close to him. For some reason, he did not unnerve her by doing this for her. She trusted him. She had no idea as to why, but she trusted that he would never even attempt to bring her to harm. He was honest, sometimes harshly so, but he wouldn't ever lay a finger on her. There was something soothing in his voice that helped to settle some of her uneasiness as she got back into bed, holding Eleanor's hand.

Ric stood behind a still upset Eleanor, rubbing her shoulders gently as he tried to calm her. "Are you alright, Eleanor?" he asked, very concerned for her. "All things considered?" he added.

"Yeah," she breathed out carefully. "Yeah, I'll be OK," she smiled, doing exactly what her mother did - smiling away others' concerns. Serena glanced at Ric and realised he wanted to speak with her alone.

"Do you know what I could use right now?" she said, looking for an excuse to send Eleanor away so she didn't have to hear this. "I could use some chocolate cake," she grinned. Eleanor just shook her head with a smile, and left to find some gooey chocolatey goodness. Once she was safely out of earshot, Serena rounded on Ric with a hard stare, determined to prove she did not need him. But that was a lie.

"Go on then," she challenged him. "Spit it out."

He sat down where Eleanor had, and he held Serena's hard gaze unflinchingly. "That was not smart," he told her sternly. Her drip had been replaced and she was safely back in bed, so no harm had been done. But she knew he was referring to both of her bouts of life-threatening idiocy. "You do realise you almost died?" he checked.

"I'm not a complete moron, Ric," she smiled at him. "I know exactly what I did, and believe it or not, I was in my right mind when I went after them." He looked at her almost disbelievingly, so she continued trying to explain how she was thinking. "I just ignored my instinct for self-preservation and tried to save Chantelle from the same fate as me. If that had happened to her..." she trailed away, shuddering involuntarily.

"And because of it, you're now scarred on your arm and neck, your daughter now knows the truth you tried to save her from, and that façade of perfection you seem to hold so dear has crumbled," he reminded her. She just stared at him, unable to deny the truth of what he was saying. Everything she'd tried to prevent had happened – she was physically scarred, her daughter was hurt and angry, and she no longer came across as emotionally flawless.

"I know the severity of what has happened," she assured him. "Just because I've accepted it, that does not mean I like it. I learned a long time ago that when something's been done, it's been done. And don't tell me everyone thinks I'm the fragile little woman of the hospital," she added with a degree of hostility that did not match her current state of physical vulnerability.

"No," he laughed. "Quite the opposite. Most people seem to respect you more than they ever have done for putting yourself in harm's way for a friend. Nobody's stupid enough to believe you're weak." He stood up and kissed her forehead very lightly. "Don't worry. You still terrify everyone with that ability to smile and manipulate at the same time. You're still Serena Campbell." He smiled down on her, meeting her dark eyes as he stood over her, in a way that was non-threatening. "You'll always be Serena Campbell."

"And you wouldn't have it any other way," she smiled wickedly. She didn't mind joking with him. He was easy – he'd be polite as possible, regardless of what happened between him and others. Yes, she'd made his life difficult before, but he still supported her, and he still stood by her through this hell. She reached up to stroke his cheek gently. "Thank you, for looking after Eleanor last night, and for stopping her from hitting Fraser. For helping me down to AAU. Thank you," she smiled to him gently.

She reached out and put her arms around him, pulling him into as tight a hug as her arm and neck would allow her to. She knew now that she would not be able to stand alone anymore. Everyone needed a friend. And she'd realised she had that here. Chantelle. Eddi and Luc. Michael. Ric. And she was extremely grateful for it.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please leave a review and tell what you think!  
Sarah x**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: OK. So this took too long to post. I hold my hands up; I drowned my laptop. For which I can only apologise, haha.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

As she stalked the dim corridor cautiously, she tried to keep her nerve. She couldn't help feeling like she'd been here before, and that something horrible was fast approaching. She opened that door, the storage room door, and found the scene that she knew she would. Chantelle, bloodied and terrified. Fraser, standing over the young nurse.

But something changed, and this was suddenly not what she knew. What she knew was tending immediately to Chantelle. She didn't know that she would stand up, her shoulders square, and stare Fraser Pickering in the eyes. She didn't know that she would be pinned to the back wall, his hand wrapped around her throat. This wasn't familiar. She knew what had happened, and this wasn't it.

What was this? She could feel his grip tighten, her air supply being cut off. She could feel her chest tighten in a combination of no air and sheer panic.

And then, suddenly, she was in her hospital room, struggling to breathe. Her monitor was beeping in protest to the state her body was in. Ric was bursting in the door, glancing at the screen as he did so. His reaction was prompt; he'd seen this before in her, but he checked anyway. "Panic attack?" he asked her, his hand gently on her back. She forced her head up and down. "Slowly, Serena, slowly breathe. Now hold your breath," he ordered her. She obeyed, stopping the air from escaping. "Now try and breath normally. Shallow breaths," he said, rubbing her back gently.

It wasn't working. She couldn't breathe. She was going to die. She could feel it. "You're going to be fine," he assured her. "Come on, now. You're fine. Shallow breaths. You know this, Serena," he reminded her.

Someone else came in - she wasn't sure who - but Ric called for them to help him calm her down. It had been years since she'd had an attack this severe, and she could feel tears of terror fall down her cheeks. The newcomer came to her other side, and she realised the American had finally surfaced after hiding from her since she came around. He had her hand in his. "Come on, Serena," he ordered her. "Nothing's gonna happen to you. I won't let it," he promised.

She continued her attempts to control her breathing so she didn't suffocate - that was the first priority. "What the hell happened?" Michael demanded of Ric.

"I came in here twenty minutes ago and she was fast asleep," Ric retorted.

She was winning now. The tight vice squeezing her chest was loosening ever so slightly, and she was beginning to control her sharp, painful breaths. Ric's hand continued to rub her back, and Michael had her hand enclosed in both of his. Since when did they actually care about her? This wasn't normal. Wasn't what she was used to, at least. It wasn't so long ago that they couldn't sit in the same room for five minutes with offending each other.

She could feel her chest and lungs return to a bearable state, and she could focus more on what was going on. "I'm alright," she snapped, her defensiveness kicking in once again.

"Yeah, you look it," Michael replied sarcastically. "You look like you've seen a ghost," he relayed the old saying.

"Well, I wish it would stop haunting me," she answered with a glare. "So you decided to show your face then?" she quipped to Michael, distracting him from the ghosts. "Never mind," she sighed, shrugging Ric's hand away and yanking her's from Michael's grasp.

"Serena," Ric began. "You can't keep pretending this never happens. You can't pretend this hasn't been affecting you, because it obviously has had a huge impact."

"It's got nothing to do with you," she pointed out. She didn't need to hear what she was already so painfully aware of. She was just thankful Eleanor had gone to school today and didn't have to see this.

"Wanna bet?" Michael replied. "Right now, you are our patient," he reminded her of the inescapable fact that it had everything to do with them while she was under their care. And she wasn't stupid or desperate enough to discharge herself just to spite them. "It's understandable that you're traumatised. You've had to face that man twice now, and you had to fight to survive. Of course it's gonna leave it's mark."

Ric was nodding in agreement. So it was two against one. And if they went to Hanssen, she was sure to be overruled; she knew he did not take mental illness lightly. They were right. Of course they were; she just didn't want to face this again. The sleeplessness and the night terrors. The fear of the dark and the claustrophobia. The paranoia. The panic attacks that too often came out of nowhere. It was hard to fight but it was worse to ignore them, because as much as she liked to pretend otherwise, Michael was right.

She suddenly realised she was backed up to the very top of her bed, her knees pulled up to her chest. She must have looked, for once, as vulnerable as she felt. This was an intervention, she figured out too late. They had witnessed the worst and were now stepping in before it seriously damaged her.

She looked between them, trying to work out what they were thinking. "Fine," she whispered. "But no shrinks. I tried once and I can't stand it."

"I can put you on medication to help you control these attacks," Ric immediately suggested. "Is that acceptable to you?" he checked. She knew then that they, both of them, wanted to do this her way. The way she won before. They just wanted to make it easier on her if they could.

"Yes," she said. This felt strange, accepting help to overcome her weaknesses. It was perhaps more strange because these were weaknesses she had never admitted to and never planned to. She'd long been terrified of letting people see the cracks, the weaknesses. What if they thought less of her for it? What if they turned it to their advantage?

"How did this happen, Serena?" Michael asked. "Nightmare?" he guessed.

She once again nodded, and supplied, "I dreamt that it all went differently the other day, and he had me-" she was briefly cut short by a lump in her throat warning her of the fear and tears that could come. "-he had me pinned by the throat, and I couldn't breathe, so I panicked."

"OK," he sighed, his hand falling lightly onto her shoulder. "It's OK."

Ric nodded to Michael, and tousled Serena's dark hair lightly, receiving a glare for his trouble. He left, and she was alone with Michael, bearing all her cracks for him to see. She could feel the air being pushed in and out of her lungs, and she was suddenly grateful for that small action. That she was still capable of breathing was nothing short of a miracle, considering the trauma her body had been put through.

Her mind had been put through hell, too, and she could deny it all she wanted, but all three of them knew that she was in need of the support she habitually rejected.

This was what it was all about - staying alive. No, more than that. _Living_. She was outgoing and she had a sense of humour and she was good company, but it all was a façade to hide the fact she was unable to let any scar show. All of that meant nothing if she couldn't enjoy it. Everything had to change. _She _had to change to have a life this time. She couldn't settle for survival anymore. She needed more. Eleanor needed more.

This, unknown to her husband, had destroyed her marriage - as if it was worth having in the first place, since she had made life difficult for all involved. It had gone on too long. She was almost surprised that she was still standing. Perhaps if her ambition and thirst for knowledge and control hadn't taken over, she wouldn't have been. Her career became - apart from her daughter - the only thing of value left to her. But that wasn't a life. That was merely a survival.

"Survival is insufficient," she breathed.

* * *

**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave a review and tell me how I did!  
Sarah x**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who is reading and reviewing this - it's much appreciated.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

After a week of close observation, Ric deemed Serena fit to go home, but under no circumstances was she to attempt work until he saw fit for her to do so. It irritated her slightly, but in a way, she was grateful someone cared enough to irritate her. She packed her clothes into her bag and headed to Ric's office to say goodbye.

She heard his low tones converse with the American's and stopped dead, deciding to listen at the door.

"...not fine, Ric!" she heard Michael exclaim, like a puppy whose tail had been stood on. "Physically, maybe."

"Oh, for God's sake, Michael," Ric retorted. "Even if she isn't, I'm not going to get anywhere with her. She resists help like it's the plague. The man can't come near her or Eleanor again, so she's safe, and in her rational mind, she knows that!" he argued. What was this? They seemed to be discussing her welfare, but she didn't understand why.

"Did you know she went to Hanssen about Pickering in the beginning, and not the other way around?" Michael challenged, and she heard him sit in what she guessed was her chair. "She made it sound like he put a stop to her operating, but he says she asked to be relived."

"Why would she do that?" Ric asked, and Serena heard the confusion in his voice. He obviously couldn't predict her as well as he thought he could. "He means nothing to her, so why would she be worried about screwing it up?"

"Don't you see?! This is what I'm trying to explain!" Michael stood up again; she heard him pacing the room. "He's everything to her. He made her the way she is and she still hasn't forgiven him for it. She wasn't worried about making a mistake. She was worried it would be deliberate! She as much as told me that."

"She wouldn't do that. First and foremost, she's a doctor and a mother. She wouldn't risk her career and her daughter just to take revenge in that lowlife." Her neck ached in annoyance as she strained it to hear better, and she had to resist the temptation to burst in there and frighten the life out of them. She needed a laugh, but she wasn't willing to let them know she could hear.

"Wanna bet?"

"Listen to yourself," Ric said. "You're making it sound like she wanted him on the operating table just to kill him. She's not that bloody-minded, and she's not stupid enough. She'll cope, and if she doesn't, she'll come to us when she's ready."

"She hasn't coped so far," the American disagreed. That statement stung just a little, but she could see where he was coming from. She had survived, but she had let love and life pass her by, focussing instead on her career. "Do you really think that she'd be a divorced single parent right now if it wasn't for him? No," he answered his own question before Ric even had an opportunity to open his mouth. "She'd be happily married."

"She wouldn't have Eleanor," Ric pointed out. "The man defined her – I get that. But what I don't understand is why you're so convinced she's going to fall!"

"If you'd seen her that day in my office, when the door was locked and the lights went out, and I was coming towards her, you'd be scared for her," Michael explained. "She was terrified. Her first thought was that I was going to hurt her. Me, of all people!"

"Of course that was her first thought, especially since you hate her!"

"I do not hate her. I don't even dislike her. I disagree with her a lot, but she's not that bad. The woman verbally nails me nearly every; that deserves some respect in itself. But she's not a bad person. She's a good mother and a good doctor, and I'll be damned if I'm letting this take that away from her!" Michael almost shouted.

"Why are you so determined to fight her wars? You know she hates it. Every time I try and help her, she tells me in to uncertain terms to mind my own business."

"Because she's the one who fights for the patients who can't fight any more. She saved Malick's ass when he nearly got struck off. She saved Chantelle from Pickering. She kept everything bottled up for eighteen years to save Eleanor from the confusion of it all. And nobody wants to stand up and help her," he said, his voice rising slightly.

"Because she won't accept it, Michael! It's pointless. The best I could get her to take was medication for the panic attacks," Ric replied. "She'll just tell us that she's dealing with it."

"But-" Michael attempted to argue back but Ric cut straight across him.

"Alright, we both know she isn't over this, and she's probably ignoring it as much as she can. But she's too set in her ways to change her now. Ten, fifteen years ago, we might have had a chance, but we've not got a hope in hell now," he reasoned. Serena knew it would make sense to Michael eventually, but she was touched that he was so determined to assist her. He was not her favourite person, and she was by no means his, so why was he so determined? She annoyed him to no end, and yet he was bent on helping her. Why?

"I know that, I guess," Michael sighed so low that she almost didn't hear him. "I was juts hoping I could help her. She said something odd a few days ago: _Survival is insufficient_. She doesn't want to live like this anymore."

Serena decided this conversation had gone too far. She didn't want them to discuss her personality flaws any further, so she knocked on the door just as Ric said, "She's going to-" and cut him short.

"Come in!" Ric called, obviously not realising who it was and what she'd heard. Serena opened the door and slipped in. "Serena, how are you feeling?" he asked when she showed her face.

She said nothing and provided him with an icy glare, just to let him know everything he'd said about her was heard. But she understood he was concerned, but didn't want to force anything on her for fear of pushing her further towards her limits. And she understood that Michael was equally concerned and wanted to help her in any way he could.

"OK," Michael sighed. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough," she replied calmly. "Stop worrying, both of you. You know me. I'll be OK," she assured them. The look in Michael's eyes said it all; he didn't trust her assurances that she would be fine.

"I came here to thank you," she explained. "Both of you." She took one more step towards Michael and pulled him into her arms, telling him what she didn't have the strength to say out loud. His arms tightened around her, and she felt him tell her he would be right next to her if and when she needed him. Professionally, they constantly disagreed, but both knew where to draw a line and help each other.

He released her gently, rubbing her back soothingly. She turned to Ric, and she didn't know what to say or do. He had always disliked her, her ways, and now she was vulnerable, he wasn't sure of her. He clearly wanted to help, but didn't know how to approach her.

He met her gaze and groaned. "Come here, you silly woman," he told her, opening his arms for her. She hesitated, knowing that it was different with Ric than it was with Michael. Michael, in the weirdest way, was easy: arrogant, cheeky, loud, irritating but with the need to protect those who needed protected. Ric was more complicated. She was never quite sure if he was supporting her or agreeing with her simply to shut her up. She was sure he disliked her, but occasionally there was a look he gave her that contradicted her assumptions.

It was with a huge amount of doubt and trepidation that she walked slowly into his arms, and she was surprised when his grasp was gentle. She'd expected him to be rough and unthinking, but he was quite the opposite.

Then she realised the situation. This was the exact reason she couldn't stay here. Everyone knew. Everyone knew what she'd been through, and how she was struggling to come to terms with this unexpected reappearance and the consequences. This – Ric, Michael, Chantelle, Hanssen, Luc, Eddi, and their concern – was why she had to go, as soon as she could. And she couldn't let them know until she was gone.

In his arms, she began plotting. A train into another city, a bag of clothes and some money. A fresh start in a new place where she could find a new job as a consultant, or even higher. There was too much history here now; she'd suffered too much. She struggled to walk down that corridor to the bathrooms without looking over her shoulder now. How was she supposed to work where she was attacked when his ghost followed her every move?

He let her go and touched her cheek gently, and it was almost enough to make her rethink. Almost, but not quite.

She felt her eyes sting with tears, and she had force herself not to cry at the thought of leaving without goodbye. It was strange, but the ones who annoyed her most were the ones who could take her mind off the past best. It was like they irritated her to distraction, and she had to be grateful for it.

She turned away from them and said absolutely nothing as she left. She bumped into Chantelle, with her wired jaw, and Serena could do nothing but hug her as tight as she could. Chantelle was no longer innocent and child-like. She had suffered the experience that was sure to force her to grow up and be less trusting.

She kissed the young woman's cheek and left without a word, leaving Chantelle confused. She walked out of Keller with her mobile phone in her hand, calling Eleanor. The phone rang a few times – she guessed Eleanor had to ask permission from her teacher – before she answered.

"Mum?" she asked, worry clear in her voice. "Is everything OK?"

"Go home, pack a bag," Serena ordered her gently, trying not to alarm her. "Now. I'll call the headmaster and tell him you're going."

"Mum, no!" she argued. This wasn't going to be as simple as she had hoped. "You can't just expect me to drop everything."

"Eleanor, shut up and do as I tell you!" she argued with her, her voice becoming firmer and sterner, letting her daughter know that she would not be talked out of this.

"I don't want to go anywhere! It's the last week of school, and I want to relax and enjoy myself! I'm not going anywhere," she asserted.

"You are going home and packing a bag; don't make me come to that school and drag you out," she warned. Threats of force were not her usual parenting style, but she was desperate to leave the place where her past came back to haunt her.

"Fine!" Eleanor shouted.

"And Eleanor?" Serena said, a lump forming in her throat as she left the lift and walked out of Holby City Hospital.

"What?!" she yelled impatiently.

"I love you more than anything in the world."

With that, she hung up the phone and got in the car, calling the school to tell them Eleanor was leaving. With her plan in place, she drove home to meet Eleanor. She opened her laptop and booked train tickets to London. When Eleanor came home, she refused to speak, just packing some clothes, make up, her phone charger and her laptop. Even as they drove to the station, she remained silent. Serena couldn't escape the feeling that Eleanor was planning something herself, but with no proof she had to push it from her mind.

She felt around for her hand and grasped it tightly. It was to Serena's relief that she felt her daughter's fingers tighten around her own hand.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to drop and review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I'm not quite sure about this chapter, but it's necessary for the next chapter to make sense. It's quite subtle, but if you read closely enough you'll see what's happened, and how, and maybe what's coming next. And I'm writing a companion songfic to the next chapter, mainly because I couldn't resist it when I came across the perfect song.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena got out of the car, collected her bags, and locked it, bending down and placing the key carefully on top of the wheel, just hidden enough so that no-one but the person who knew of it would know where it was. Once she was on the train, she intended to phone Ric and ask him to take her car back to his house. Do whatever he wanted with it – sell it, whatever.

Eleanor was kneeling next to her, her arm around her mother's waist in case she lost her balance; her full strength had not returned yet, and she was beginning to wonder if she would ever be alright again. The fear was evident in the poor girl's eyes. She'd never seen her mother run from anything in her life, at least not directly. But she didn't understand that she'd been running with Serena her entire life – between America and England, there had never been a place they stayed in for more than three years.

It had meant that Eleanor constantly shifted schools and left friends behind, and it probably didn't do her any favours to have no stability. Not to mention her mother, who could be so odd that it was a wonder Eleanor never asked more questions than she did.

She was on her feet again, and Eleanor said, "If we're going to London, I'm going to need to find a bathroom before we leave."

"Of course, sweetheart," Serena gave her a false smile. "Eleanor," she called her back as she turned away. "I realise I'm asking a lot of you. You've taken this all very well, considering. I am so very proud of you. You do know that, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Mum," she smiled, but it was still tainted with fear and sadness at leaving a place she'd settled in to well. But a good place was worth nothing if her mother was halfway deranged with fear and pain. She turned away and walked ahead of her into the station, making to the bathrooms. It left Serena with a minute or two to think.

She didn't want to go; she had let Holby grow on her, and the people here were more interesting than anywhere else she'd come across. Chantelle's child-like naivety was so endearing to her. Sacha's loveable nature was so lovely to be around. Chrissie was good to laugh with. Michael, and his arrogance and charm, were strangely fascinating to her. Ric's calm nature, and supportive gestures, were a comfort to her. Hanssen was oddly comforting, too, as his logic was clear and his motives pure. Luc, and his odd ways, and his love for Eddi, were almost captivating to observe. Even Jac Naylor intrigued her; how a woman could be so cut-throat but so minutely vulnerable was almost unbelievable.

But all of the wonder and kindness and oddness of the people she worked with could not negate what happened here. She would not be able to stay, knowing that _he_ was nearby. That he'd be out of prison in a few years and he would know where she worked unnerved her to the point it was impossible to stay. No-one could protect her, from him or from herself.

Eleanor came back a few minutes later, and read the board. The train to London was due in twenty-seven minutes, so she had time to get some coffee to keep her awake. She didn't want to sleep; it was too traumatic most of the time. The image of _his_ face and the sound of _his_ voice was almost too much to bear. The memory of Chantelle's crouched form, and her broken jaw. Even remembering how she lied to Hanssen, and how she forced Michael to let her go, haunted her.

Eleanor put her arm around her waist again, as if she was holding on to her mother while she was still who she always was. It made Serena worry that Eleanor saw the changes in her, and how everything was affecting her. It made her wonder if she could see the hint of doubt she felt about this move. When she left, she was sure this was the right thing to do; now, though, she wondered what the point of yet another new start was.

She felt around for her phone, and looked up Ric's number. Her thumb hovered over the green phone symbol on her screen, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She felt so confused. In her heart, she knew there were people who cared for her here, but she didn't know if she could face going back there once she recovered. When it was reasonably calm and the politics weren't too bad, it was a nice place to work. People looked out for each other, and there was always someone with the answer because there were no two people with the same ideas.

"I love you," Eleanor said unexpectedly as she sat down with a paper cup of hot black coffee.

"I love you too," Serena replied with a smile. "Everything's going to be fine," she continued. "We'll find a nice flat to rent, and we'll find you a good school and I'll email Hanssen my resignation and find another job as a surgical consultant."

In truth, she could tell herself everything would be fine as many times as she wanted, but there was something that wouldn't be fine: her state of mind. The nightmares, the panic attacks, the claustrophobia, the nyctophobia...it was almost textbook post-traumatic stress disorder. It was not something she wanted to admit to herself, but she couldn't avoid that anymore. She recognised now just how horrific and prolonged the experience had been, and that there was bound to be a consequence.

The worst thing was, it was something she couldn't fight alone. There was some things she could handle and some she couldn't; this was crossing a line. When she got to London, she was going to get some help to get past this. She couldn't live like this. She couldn't force Eleanor to live with her like this, either.

"Eat that," Serena ordered her daughter, handing her a cheese and ham sandwich and a bar of chocolate. "I took you out of school before you could have lunch."

Eleanor obliged, which made Serena wonder...she wasn't putting up enough of a fight. Eleanor Campbell was as feisty and determined as her mother, and Serena had expected all hell to break loose, not for the teenager to sit back and accept it. She'd expected her girl to live up to her reputation, and come to the station only kicking and screaming. Or spend the whole time holding a sour and pointed silence.

The minutes slowly ticked by until the platform opened, and Serena picked up her bags and took her daughter's hand, squeezing it gently in a gesture to reassure her that she knew what she was doing. But as she queued for the train, she realised she didn't even have a proper plan in place. No home – not even a hotel or bed and breakfast booked – and no job to go to and no school for Eleanor. She was more clueless now than she ever had been before. She wasn't even in any fit state to go anywhere, but she couldn't bring herself to go back. She wouldn't bottle it; she had never bottled it before and she wasn't going to now.

The queue moved slowly as people showed their tickets and got their luggage sorted out. Finally, she was able to show their tickets and proceed to the train. There was a commotion behind her but she paid no attention; that sort of thing was always happening at stations and it was no business of hers.

She reached her hand out to press the button that opened the doors, but she never touched it. Instead, a hand took hers, stopping her from climbing aboard the train. She froze, not knowing how to react to this. She would have known that hand anywhere, and she felt another presence, one she knew, behind her.

"Don't," a soft, familiar voice told her, pulling her hand away from the button that would change everything. "Stop running."

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please leave a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this!**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena looked up and saw Michael looking down on her; behind her, his arm around Eleanor's shoulders, was Sacha Levy, and behind Michael stood, of all people, the slim frame of Jac Naylor. Serena eyed Sacha with daggers for laying a finger on her daughter. "Take your hands off her," she told him, keeping her voice level.

"Come on," Michael groaned. "You actually think_ Sacha_ is going to hurt anyone?"

"It's fine, Mum," she whispered, and Serena realised how far her problem had gone. Sacha hurting Eleanor? Of course not; he didn't have it in him. The father of three was as soft as putty. She backed away from the two men in her shock at her own thoughts, and felt a small hand on her shoulder; Jac was keeping her steady.

"I'm sorry," Serena whispered, the grief and pain finally coming to a boiling point. "I'm so sorry," she repeated herself, backing off from them all before she finally turned away and ran. She ran to the nearest quiet place – the bathrooms – and locked herself in one of the cubicles. She felt a sense of deja vu here; when he first arrived at Holby, this was the first thing she did. She hid. It was what she always had done. She hid behind a quick remark and a pretty smile, hoping nobody could see beyond it.

She jumped when a fist rapped lightly on the cubicle door. "Serena," Jac said. When she didn't answer, hoping the woman would just go away, she barked, "Serena!"

"What?" she replied, horrified when her voice came out broken and tearful. She was crying, and she only noticed when she felt the lump in her throat. She'd been so upset and so distressed that she hadn't noticed she was crying.

"Come out here," Jac ordered her, softer and kinder than she'd ever heard the redhead speak. Serena, deciding that there was nowhere left to run, obeyed hesitantly, wiping away her tears with her sleeve. But they wouldn't stop. She couldn't stop herself crying; this was the start of the end of her ordeal. The whole experience had been downright unpleasant and now it had to end. And for it to end, she needed these three; the ones who came after her.

Jac held out a hand to her silently, and she took it. She was led to the same coffee shop she had sat with Eleanor in earlier, and they all sat together at a table. "An hour ago, I got a phone call from this one," Michael said, nodding his head at Eleanor. "The worst part was that I wasn't even surprised."

Serena glared at her daughter; she pieced it together in her head. She remembered the girls arm around her waist – twice – and how she had gone to the bathrooms on her own. She must have taken and replaced her phone without her noticing. The girl was as sneaky as her mother.

"Come back with us," Sacha said.

"There's nothing for me here," Serena answered. "In a few years time, he'll be out of prison and he'll know where we are. I'm not going to take that risk."

"Running will get you nowhere," Jac told her bluntly, blowing away all attempts at a softly-softly approach from Sacha. "All it'll achieve is you sitting in some psych ward because it's driven you insane."'

"Jac!" Sacha whispered, trying to shut her up.

"No," Jac snapped. "Do you really think your daughter wants to run away? Of course she doesn't. She wants her mother to pull her act together and get a grip!"

"You don't get it, do you?" Serena retorted. "I am no use to anyone looking over my shoulder all the time. If I go back, I won't be able to walk down that corridor without someone holding my hand!" she argued, her temper rising in frustration and embarrassment. Angry tears ran down her cheeks, and she was so worked up that her head was pounding and she felt dizzy.

"And if you go, you'll spend your life looking over your shoulder anyway!" Jac shouted, attracting attention from the people at the next table. "It isn't worth uprooting your daughter. You'll be like this regardless of where you are and who you're with!"

"Can it, both of you!" Michael ordered. "Serena, nobody wants you to go, because we've seen you go through hell and back in the past fortnight. Jac's right. It doesn't matter where you go, you'll still be scared."

"I won't be," Serena insisted. "I'll be fine once I get away from here."

"And what about Chantelle Lane?" Jac challenged. "She's going to need you, because you're the only one who understands what happened to her," she said, but Serena saw something in her when she said it. She saw the lie behind her eyes, and at that moment, she saw why she was doing this. She realised that Jac had been hurt before too; though the woman would never admit it, she now saw why Jac Naylor was so passionate about this.

Sacha leaned across the table and took Serena's hand. "The more you run, the faster it'll chase you," he surmised, in a gentler and nicer fashion than Jac had. "And, you know, we're all here when you need us. We all understand what's happened. Chrissie, you know what she's like. She'll be there when you need her. And I dare say Malick will put you straight when you're messed up. And Ric and Michael have already proved themselves, haven't they? I'm always here for both of you, and Jac..." he continued, glancing at her. "Jac will do what she can, though she'll probably be excessively candid about it."

"Mum," Eleanor spoke up. "Listen to them. They're trying to do right by us."

"Why are you so determined to leave?" Michael demanded. "Enough of the temper and the smart-ass answers. He's gone, so what are you so scared of?"

She met and held his gaze, and she felt the wall around her crumble. She couldn't hold it up anymore, and she wasn't going to try. She had to come clean and lay it all on the table. "I'm just scared," she confessed. It wasn't one thing in particular that scared her. It was everything. Him, the hospital, other people, herself. "I'm scared he'll come back when he's released from prison. I'm scared of what he's capable of, and what he could do to me and Eleanor. I'm scared of myself and how badly I'm dealing with everything. What if he comes back and I'm in the firing line again?"

"I won't let that happen," he replied. "I promise you, Serena, that I won't let him hurt you."

"You can't stop him. If he wants to hurt someone, he'll go out of his way to do it," she replied.

"Then I'll go out of my way to stop him," he challenged, raising an eyebrow.

Sacha and Eleanor looked on as Serena tried to rationalise her determination to leave as Michael and Jac ripped it all down in front of her, leaving her with no reason to leave and every reason to stay.

"Stay," Jac ordered, rather forcefully. "Don't drag yourself around the country when the ghost is always going to follow you."

"The ghost of him," she whispered.

Sacha held out a hand to her, and she found herself unable to speak and, more worryingly, unable to make a decision. If she stayed, she'd live in fear. But Jac was right; if she went, she'd live in fear still, only surrounded by unfamiliar scenery and unfamiliar people. And she had to remember that she could not expect Eleanor to follow her anymore; the girl was seventeen years old and, even though she would never use it, she was entitled to leave her mother if she wished.

Serena looked up at the man offering her his hand, and gave him a small smile. She placed her hand gently in his and felt him squeeze lightly in support of her decision. The big teddy bear of a man allowed himself an open smile and an arm around Eleanor. Michael picked up their bags and Jac helped Serena to her feet. "You're doing the right thing," Jac told her unexpectedly.

"Am I?"

"Yes," the woman asserted.

"I don't even know what I'm going back to," she admitted, and Jac's arm wrapped itself around her waist, keeping her from falling over as she felt her face drain white.

"You're going back to friends, and people who want to help," Sacha explained, opening the back passenger door to Michael's car and putting the bags in. "Eleanor, you can ride with me back to the hospital, if you want to. Stop and get a takeaway?" he suggested. Eleanor looked to her mother for permission. Serena gave her a smile and a nod, telling her there was no malice in Sacha Levy; the man didn't have a bad bone in his body.

"Keys?" Jac asked her, and it became apparent that Jac was to drive back to the hospital with Michael and Serena.

"On top of the tyre," she sighed. "Front drivers' side."

Jac smirked and shook her head as she knelt down and retrieved the keys. Michael helped Serena into the back seat; she must have looked as rotten as she felt. She felt incredibly fragile and frail, as if one blow would knock her apart. She hated the feeling, and even more that she had to rely on others.

Michael sat next to her and looked over her face. She was sure he saw how badly she was handling this. It was like she'd gone back in time eighteen years and was doing the only thing she knew how to – running away. The difference was that these people were as determined to help her as she was to leave.

He held her hand in his and brushed the stray hair of her fringe out of her eyes. "Everything's going to be OK," he promised her. Jac looked in the mirror as she reversed out of the parking space and Serena met her gaze. She was forceful – maybe even excessively so – but her judgement was pure. More than could be said for Serena.

"Don't worry," Jac smiled as she drove out of the station. "You'll be back to pushing the boys around in no time."

"Speaking from experience, Jac?" Serena quipped, and a smile revealed itself across Michael's face. She just hoped Jac was right and she would actually be able to face those she worked with. No...she was stronger than that. She _would_ face it. She _would_ face the people, hospital and everything that happened there. If she couldn't, where else could she go?

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Thanks once again to everyone for their lovely reviews! And if this chapter is a bit silly, well, it IS 2.23am.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

Serena felt her breath catch when she saw a very worried-looking Ric behind the glass doors to the hospital. "You didn't tell him, did you?" she demanded of Michael.

"He was in theatre," he explained. "Otherwise he would've come with us. He wanted to hand over to Malick and come and find you, until I pointed out he'd possibly be fired for knowingly leaving the hospital without a GS consultant on-call. Hanssen would've hit the roof if he did that."

Jac parked the car, and Serena watched Ric's restless figure intently. He wasn't angry. He wasn't irritated. He wasn't even vaguely annoyed. He was, pure and simply, worried. And for some reason unknown to her, she found herself wanting to be near him. She wanted to put his mind at ease and tell him she was going to get through this. No more running, no more lying and no more hiding. Just the truth. The whole truth, starting from the top, letting him know how much it meant that she'd come to trust him around her.

She knew why they took her back here; they wanted her to face Ric. They wanted her to stop lying to him, and to apologise for scaring him silly. Jac got out the car and opened the door for Serena while Michael got out and collected her bags. "How do I do this?" Serena whispered frantically to the cold redhead.

"All you can do is tell him the truth," Jac replied. "Lying, running away, avoiding the subject...none of it will get you anywhere. And besides," she added, looking over to Ric. "Look at him. He's worried sick; what does it tell you?"

Serena said nothing, but she did realise what Jac was getting at. The way he was waiting for her intrigued her; it wasn't hostile like she'd half-expected. It was like he was waiting to find out whether she was coming back. Like he was waiting to see if he'd lost her. The idea that he would be hurt by losing her was odd to her. The only person who'd displayed that feeling for her was Eleanor; by the time she'd been divorced, her husband wasn't all too bothered to see the back of her. In fact, she'd pushed him away to the point that he seemed quite relieved by the end of it all.

To her surprise, Jac squeezed her hand in support. "Come on," she said. "You've got to do this at some point."

She linked her arm with Serena's to keep the exhausted woman on her feet. Serena had a bad feeling that she was going to end up spending tonight in hospital as a precaution; she knew she'd overdone it today. She heard Michael come up behind them with her and Eleanor's bags, and she slowly began to understand why he'd intervened. Like Ric, he wasn't willing to lose her to her eighteen years of hell.

Ric noticed them and came to meet them. Now she could see his face, she saw what Jac meant. What she found wasn't just concern for a colleague. It was far more than that. It was _fear_. Fear of letting her destroy her own life. Because they all knew that's what would've happened had she got on that train.

He met her, and when got to her, he pulled her into a tight embrace. He obviously wasn't bothered about offending her now. His emotions were running too high. "I'm sorry," she whispered in his ear, returning the embrace as closely as her still fragile body would allow. "I'm sorry I couldn't see what I can have here."

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," he assured her, pressing his lips softly into her hair. "Never let me believe you'll cope when you're scared enough to run away."

For the first time in a long time, she felt safe in the arms of a man. She trusted he would never try and harm her. She trusted he was going to stick by her even though he knew the extent of everything she'd faced. She was perfectly willing to stand here for the rest of time, but she knew there was something she had to do, and she had to do it now or she never would.

She pulled back, his face in her hands. "We need to talk, Ric. I'm sick of dancing around it," she told him.

He didn't reply. He just took her hand in his and led her into the hospital. Michael overtook them, slapping Ric's shoulder on the way past. Jac soon passed them too, and Serena swore there was a look of vague satisfaction upon her face. They entered the lift; Serena was reluctant, but she felt safe as long as Ric's silent promise to stay with her held.

They were soon on Keller once more. She saw Malick for the first time in nearly a fortnight as she went through the ward. He'd been busy, and she suspected he'd kept his distance for fear of making matters any worse than they already were. But when she dropped Ric's hand and went to see him, he gave her an uncharacteristically soft smile and rubbed her arm gently. "Ric said you tried to do a runner," he accused. "But you're back now. You'll be OK. Just you wait and see."

It was as if he'd looked into her mind and found that doubt in her, the one that didn't know what she'd come back to. She didn't know how she would feel in five minutes' time, never mind five months or five years. He looked over at Ric, who was waiting at the edge of the ward for her. "He was going off his head," he told her. "Kept going on about how you wouldn't cope if you didn't have him or Michael or me. He really cares about you, you know."

"I can't, Malick," she replied, seeing what he was trying to tell her. "It'll just end in tears."

"And how do you know that? Look, he wants to look after you. I can see it a mile off," he explained. "Just let him try."

"And if it goes wrong?"

"And if it doesn't?" he challenged her pessimism. "He was ready to abandon ship to go out and find you. Michael had to force him to stay here," he said, repeating Michael's version of events. If it was true, it was totally out of character for Ric to do that. The patient always came first, before any other responsibility. Was it really possible that her welfare became more important to him today? "Just because you're scared doesn't mean you shouldn't try."

"What if _I_ go wrong, Malick? What if I'm the one who messes it all up by not trusting him and pushing him away? Wouldn't be the first time," she admitted.

He ruffled her hair slightly in a very rare moment of humanity and answered her question very simply, "Play on." He nodded towards Ric, telling her to get on with it, before he went to attend to the man in bed four.

Before she even had time to lay a plan of action in her head, Ric was closing the office door and waiting patiently for an explanation. "I'm sorry," she said yet again. It was the only thing she could come up with under the pressure she felt to do right by him after putting him through so much.

"I told you, Serena," he said, more warmly than she'd expected from him. "You've got nothing to apologise for. You were scared, and you did what every human's first instinct is to do."

"I couldn't do it anymore," she confessed. "I couldn't keep pretending I'm fine when I'm struggling with it just as much as I did all those years ago. I'll tell you something though," she smiled. "You and Michael, you've both been wonderful through all this. I know for a fact you don't always get along, but you pulled together to make sure I pulled through. I'm very grateful for all you've done for me."

He took her hand again and reminded her, "That's what friends are for."

She looked down at their joined hands, startled by how _normal_ it felt. She'd not felt so at ease with anyone for a long time; there was something strangely calming about Ric. His deep voice was pacifying when she was most upset, and he wasn't one for maliciousness. He could make her tell him anything now, and it was something she valued.

"I didn't think men like you existed," she admitted. "Yes, I know you're no angel. I've heard about the gambling and the women and the children and all the rest of it," she added when he opened his mouth to enlighten her about his many, many flaws. "And you infuriate me to death sometimes. But when I need it, you somehow manage to keep me level. You're not someone I would've guessed as the person I'd end up trusting the most," she confessed.

"I guess trust must be a very valuable commodity to you," he said, and she saw he understood her better than she credited him with. "It must take a lot for you to put your faith in someone like that."

"He ripped that ability from me, Ric. You have to understand that," she implored him. "I trusted him, and he completely abused it. He tore me down until I felt like I was two inches tall. He said if I told anyone, they would never take me seriously. He said if I spoke about it and it got back to him, he'd kill me. He said-" she rambled, but she felt a soft hand over her mouth, shutting her up.

"I understand, Serena," he gently said. "I understand what he did to you. I don't judge you for the way you live. I was merely making an observation."

"Sorry," she whispered again, not knowing what else to say.

"Will you stop saying that?!" he exclaimed exasperatedly. She looked at him searchingly, and was taken aback slightly by the caring expression he wore. Malick and Jac had been right; he really did care. And she really did trust him.

She reached out and touched his face lightly, and she felt the tears sting her eyes. She didn't even know why she felt like crying. Probably a combination of emotional turmoil and mental exhaustion, actually.

She pressed her lips into his, kissing him gently, and he responded by very carefully placing a hand on the back of her head as he kissed her back. For once, she kissed without fear of deception or abuse, and without that voice in the back of her mind telling her to watch her step. For once, she felt a hand on her waist and no alarm bells rang. For once, she was free.

He pulled back from her, a look of mild shock gracing his features. She felt his hand on her face and didn't flinch as she usually would have done. She gave him a soft smile and leaned into his chest, letting him wrap his strong arms around her. He was, after all, the person she trusted the most.

* * *

**Hope this is alright!  
****Please leave a review and let me know what you think!  
****Sarah x**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: This is the final chapter, I think, so I hope it satisfies. I wanted a slightly lighter conclusion. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed, too.**

**Sarah x**

* * *

"I'm fine!" Serena argued as Ric readmitted her overnight because of the strain she out on herself by pulling her failed disappearing act. "Do I not look the picture of health?!"

"No," he replied. "Quite frankly, you look like death warmed up, Serena," he added honestly. She sighed and accepted he was doing this for her, because he didn't want her hurt any more than she already was. "Now, get in that side room and get some _rest_," he ordered. He snatched the laptop bag from her hands and said, "And I'll be taking that."

She groaned in defeat and made her way to the side room. She knew he was right. She even felt tired enough to sleep for a month. She sat on the bed and contemplated her position. She admitted now she'd never dealt with what he did to her; she'd spent her life trying to forget it rather than face the fact that it had to have changed her.

And then there was Ric. Good old Ric, waiting to ambush her the second she got out the car. Strangely, though, she found him very easy to trust. He was calm and quiet, and rarely truly lost his temper.

Just then, the door opened and the tall looming figure of Henrik Hanssen stepped in. "I hear you tried to make the great escape," he informed her gently, sitting in the chair next to the bed. She looked at him, wondering why he cared. Wondering why he even was bothering with her.

But all the same, she answered sourly, "I didn't get very far, did I?"

"That was only because they cared enough about you to stop you," he reminded her. "If they'd let you get on the train and you deteriorated further, you'd have spent your life wondering why no-one cared enough to take a few minutes to drum some sense into you."

She sighed. He was right, of course. His hand rested on her arm, and she realised he was trying to be nice. The weight of his hand didn't bother her half as much as she'd expected. He wasn't an aggressive man. He was probably the most visibly calm person in her life at the moment. She'd perceived him all wrong. He wasn't cold like he let people think. He cared about everyone under his leadership, including her.

She briefly wondered why he hadn't said anything before now, about people caring. About _him_ actually caring what happened to her. But then, Hanssen was Hanssen, and no-one was going to change him now. She wasn't even sure she wanted him to change; he was the only person she knew who could be faced with mortal peril and not freak out. He wouldn't do it outwardly, anyway, which was more than Serena could say for herself.

"I'm sorry for doing that," she told him sincerely. "I panicked."

"We all panic, Serena," he reminded her. "People deal with their emotions differently, and I must say, you could have handled yours much worse than you did. Yes, you panicked, but it wasn't too late for someone to talk sense into you."

Serena laughed with little humour and admitted, "Jac Naylor practically jumped down my throat."

"Jac is...spirited," he decided on the most polite word to use for the woman. "Especially when she finds something she cares about, or something she wants to save."

And, speak of the devil, the door opened again and Jac and Jonny entered, Jonny holding a bunch of flowers and, oddly, a deck of playing cards. "How are you feeling?" Jac asked, leaning down to hug her lightly. Jac had found, Serena realised, someone who shared that terror one only feels when their back was against the wall.

"Ric has readmitted me," she answered slightly bitterly. Jonny handed her the flowers, saying nothing, and she just smiled up at him. Michael and Chrissie came in next, and the room was becoming rather crowded, which worried Serena until she remembered these were people who went out of their way to help her – they weren't about to go and hurt her.

Chrissie sat down and scolded her lightly, "You do realise it's barely been a week since you nearly bled to death? Trying to make a quick getaway wasn't very smart."

"Yes, so I've been told," Serena answered, and Chrissie smiled in the knowledge Serena's sarcasm had returned to her. Michael sat down next to her on the bed, and she instinctively flinched away from him; in her own mind, she knew Michael was not going to do anything to her, but it was a subconscious reaction for her now.

Why were all these people coming to visit her? Hanssen, Jac, Jonny, Michael, Chrissie...Ric was going to have something to say about this little congregation. Oh well. After all, what was more fun than winding Ric up?

The door opened again and Sacha and Eleanor walked in with a huge pile of takeaway food. They handed her a paper package, which she opened to reveal fish and chips. Very unhealthy, and Ric was sure to nag her, but she didn't particularly give a toss right now. She hadn't noticed she was hungry until she smelled them coming into her room.

She looked around her; seven people were smiling and sharing out food and fizzy juice, all come to see _her_. Wow.

"Scabby Queen, anyone?" Jonny said loudly over the commotion, holding up a deck of cards. Serena was surprised to see Hanssen, ever the most reserved, take the deck of cards and start shuffling them, all the while munching on chips. He then took out three of the Queens, leaving the Queen of Hearts, and held the remaining one up for the others to see before putting it back.

Before Serena knew it, she was playing cards with them, everyone analysing their friends' faces carefully every time some took a card. Suddenly, Jac shouted at Jonny, ever so childishly, "That's cheating!"

"What?! I didn't do anything!" he replied, but even Serena saw he was lying. She looked to see Hanssen smirking to himself, and Michael grinning.

"You bent the corner of that card!" she exclaimed. "I saw you do it!"

"I did not!" he retorted.

"Did."

"Didn't."

"Did!" she almost yelled, taking the card from him. She showed Serena the crack in the corner of the card – the Queen of Hearts – and said, "Look!"

"Jonny," Serena drawled with a gentle smile. "Henrik, give me another Queen, will you?" she requested, and he handed her the Queen of Diamonds and she gave him the card she held, giving the new one to Jac.

"It's his," the redhead announced, but Serena shook her head.

"It was your turn and you took that card," she explained. "I think you've just been had." She looked around at her daughter and winked at her, making the girl smile for the first time in a while. Sacha was sitting next to her chuckling while Michael sat on the bed next to Serena, struggling to eat pepperoni pizza without making an utter mess. In doing so, he spilled his glass of coke.

"Michael!" Chrissie scolded him, getting some paper towel to wipe it up with. "You know what happens when you try to multi-task."

Serena could help but snort into her own glass at that one, eyeing the blonde with an amused look. She felt lighter than she'd done in a long time. This was just what she needed – a group of friends and colleagues relaxing and playing some pointless game of cards and watching as the people around her unwound and leave the troubles of the past week behind them. She was more at ease with herself, and was beginning to trust these people would be here for her.

Just then, Ric slipped in the door. "Not interrupting the party, am I?" he asked, with a steely glare at Serena. "I thought I told you to get some rest," he reminded her.

"Yes, because time on my own is exactly what I need right now," she retorted sarcastically. "Come on," she groaned. "A bit of fun's not going to do me any harm. There's no booze, and we're all on our best behaviour," she promised, putting on her best innocent face, but rolling her eyes when the glare did not soften. "It's not like I'm on death's door, is it?"

"But you _were_, Serena," he said. He looked around at them all, realising that, with Henrik and Jac there, he was fighting a losing battle. "Fine," he sighed, sitting on the spare chair next to Hanssen. For some reason, all the others avoided that seat, Michael even sitting on the bed as an alternative. "If you can't beat them, join them."

He poured himself a mug of cola, stealing some chips from Michael's abandoned paper; he was concentrating too much on not messing her bed up _too_ badly. He was hovering the pizza above his head, trying to catch the extra cheese Sacha had ordered for him in his mouth. "Michael?" Ric said politely.

"Yeah?"

"You're an idiot," Ric grinned, and everyone started laughing – even the stoic Hanssen hiding in the corner let out a chuckle.

"He certainly looks less than intelligent in that position," Henrik chimed in.

"What, even less than usual?" Jac added, grinning her evil grin at Michael.

Serena grinned and realised, for the first time, she'd gone a length of time worry free, just enjoying the company of those she spent her life with. She was by no means over that mountain she had to crawl...but with these people who clearly really did care for her, it seemed a little smaller.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to review and let me know what you thought!  
Sarah x**


End file.
